University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


\ 


j 


THE  HUMANIST'S  LIBRARY 
Edited  by  Lewis  Einstein 

VII 

A  PLATONICK  DISCOURSE 
UPON  LOVE 


PLATONICK  DISCOURSE 
UPON  LOVE 

BY 
PICO  DELLA  MIRANDOLA 

11          * 

Edited  by 
EDMUND  G.  GARDNER 


or  THE 

(UNIVERSITY 


Boston 
The  Merrymount  Press 


Copyright,  1914,  by  D.  B.  Updike 


A  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Introduction  ix 

The  First  Book  3 

The  Second  Book  21 

The  Sonnet  5* 

The  Third  Book  63 

Notes  to  Introduction  79 

Bibliographical  Note  83 


. 

0  O 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

*  * 
* 

Being  in  a  dark  wood,  and  travelling  along  a 
hard  and  rough  path,  I  rested  from  my  labour, 
and  slept.  In  my  slumber  I  had  this  vision.  Me- 
thought  that  I  ascended  a  very  high  mountain, 
from  which  was  seen  almost  all  the  world,  and 
above  this  mountain  there  was  another  even 
higher,  from  which  things  yet  more  distant  were 
beheld.  On  the  first  mountain  stood  a  most  beau- 
teous Lady,  and  before  her  there  was  a  fire  so 
great  that  it  gave  warmth  to  all  the  world;  on  the 
other  mountain,  which  was  higher,  stood  two  La- 
dies, and  between  them  there  was  a  most  fair 
fountain,  to  which  I  was  wont  to  go  oftentimes  to 
drink.  Wherefore,  wishing  to  go  thither  to  drink, 
as  was  my  usage,  it  behoved  me  to  pass  in  front 
of  the  first  Lady,  and,  as  I  passed,  I  saw  a  Squire 
kneeling  before  her,  to  whom  the  Lady  was  say- 
ing these  words:  'Thou  knowest  me  by  my  face 
and  by  my  bearing  right  well,  that  I  am  Love.' 
And  he  answered  her: '  My  Lady,  it  is  very  sooth/ 
And  the  Lady  said  to  him:  'Now  hearken  to  me, 
and  listen  well  to  what  I  would  tell  thee.  I  have 
sent  to  the  world  two  messengers  of  mine,  to  wit, 
Solomon  and  Ovidius  Naso;  the  one  led  me  into 
the  world  with  music  and  song,  and  the  other 

ix 


Intro-       wrought  the  art  wherewith  I  should  be  brought. 

dudlion  From  then  until  now  I  have  sent  no  messenger, 
but  those  that  have  spoken  of  me  have  done  so 
either  for  their  own  desire  of  knowledge  or  be- 
cause they  were  heated  by  this  fire.  I  have  chosen 
thee  for  my  third  messenger,  and  this  has  been 
done  with  reason;  for  as  the  first  was  divine  in 
his  sweetness,  and  the  second  was  a  most  perfedl 
poet,  so  art  thou  a  philosopher  full  of  wisdom; 
and  because  thou  art  not  a  slave  of  Love,  but 
a  friend,  I  command  thee  not,  but  I  pray  thee  to 
renew  my  memory  in  the  world,  and  to  tell  of 
my  nature  and  secret  conditions,  upon  which  the 
other  speakers  have  not  touched.'  Having  heard 
this,  that  noble  Squire  answered  the  Lady,  and 
said:  'My  Lady,  what  you  pray  of  me  shall  be 
done,  but,  because  the  world  is  full  of  divers  fash- 
ions, tell  me  the  fashion  that  you  would  have  me 
adopt  in  my  speech/  And  the  Lady  made  reply: 
'  I  will  tell  thee  one  condition  of  mine,  which  is 
that  I  can  verily  give  the  desire  of  speaking,  but 
cannot  give  the  wisdom  and  the  fashion;  but  hie 
thee  to  those  Ladies  on  the  mountain,  who  are 
the  two  Philosophies,  Moral  and  Natural,  and  they 
will  teach  thee  the  fashion  of  speaking/" 

Thus,  quaintly  enough,  opens  the  fourteenth 
century  commentary— erroneously  and  unac- 
countably attributed  to  the  great  Augustinian 
schoolman,  Egidio  Colonna1  — on  the  famous 
canzone  of  Guido  Cavalcanti,  "Donna  mi  prega 
x 


perch'  io  voglio  dire."  A  century  and  a  half  Intro- 
later,  this  poem  seemed  to  the  young  Lorenzo  dudlion 
de'  Medici  "a  very  wonderful  canzone  in  which 
this  gracious  poet  subtly  described  every  quality , 
virtue,  and  accident  of  love;"  but  to  us  to-day 
it  is  a  somewhat  dreary  composition,  without  a 
touch  of  the  mystical  enthusiasm  which  gives  lyr- 
ical impetus  to  the  "  AI  cor  gentil  ripara  sempre 
amore  "  of  Cavalcanti's  lesser  namesake  and  elder 
contemporary,  Guido  Guinizelli  of  Bologna.  And 
the  exposition  itself  but  emphasises  the  dull- 
ness of  the  stanzas.  Guido  Cavalcanti  opened  the 
series  of  discussions  on  the  philosophy  of  love, 
which  were  to  exercise  such  a  fascination  over 
the  minds  of  the  men  and  women  of  the  Renais- 
sance; but  the  canzone  and  the  commentary 
with  which  we  have  now  to  deal  are  on  a  higher 
plane.  For  between  Cavalcanti  and  Girolamo 
Benivieni,  between  the  pseudo-Egidio  and  Pico 
della  Mirandola,  had  come  the  revival  of  Plato- 
nism  and  Neo-Platonism  in  Italy. 

Neither  Guido  Cavalcanti  nor  his  commentator^ 
makes  any  mention  of  Plato  or  his  dodlrines.  Yet, ; 
not  many  years  before  the  canzone  was  writ- 
ten, Albertus  Magnus  had  declared  that  Plato 
and  Aristotle  alike  were  necessary  to  the  perfecfl 
philosopher:  "Non  perficitur  homo  in  philoso- 
phia  nisi  ex  scientia  duarum  philosophiarum  Aris- 
totelis  et  Platonis."2  Dante  cites  Plato  somewhat 
frequently,  but  he  knew  nothing  of  him  at  first 

xi 


Intro-  hand,  save  in  the  Latin  translation  of  the  "Ti- 
dudlion  maeus  "  by  Chalcidius.  For  the  poet  of  the  "Divina 
Commedia,"  Aristotle  alone  is  still  "il  maestro  di 
color  che  sanno;"3  but  Petrarch  already,  in  a  re- 
markable anticipation  of  the  following  century, 
has  deposed  the  Stagirite  in  favour  of  his  mas- 
ter, and  enthroned  Plato  in  the  place  of  philo- 
sophical supremacy.4 

There  came  to  the  Council  of  Ferrara  in  1438 
a  venerable  Greek,  named  Georgius  Gemistus, 
who  seems  to  have  been  already  more  than 
eighty  years  old.  He  had  held  high  office  under 
the  Emperors  of  the  East,  and  had  come  to  Italy 
ostensibly  to  work  for  the  reunion  of  the  Eastern 
and  Western  Churches;  but  in  reality  he  cared 
for  none  of  these  things.  While  men  like  Bessa- 
rion  looked  to  the  salvation  of  Greece  by  means 
of  reunion  with  the  Church  of  Rome,  Gemistus 
probably  said  in  his  heart:  "A  plague  o'  both 
your  Churches."  An  ardent  Neo-Platonist,  a  stu- 
dent of  Zoroaster  and  other  philosophers  of  old, 
he  dreamed  of  the  restoration  of  ancient  Greece 
and  her  liberation  from  her  Turkish  assailants  by 
a  renovation  of  the  antique  virtues  of  the  Greeks 
themselves;  from  the  "Republic"  of  Plato  and 
the  old  constitution  of  Lacedaemon,  he  had  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  new  State  to  be  founded  upon 
a  new  religion,  which  was  to  be  a  combination  of 
Platonic  philosophy  with  the  classical  mythology 
of  Greece.  When,  in  the  following  year,  he  ac- 
xii 


companied  the  council  to  Florence,  he  seemed  to  Intfo- 
the  Florentines  a  true  reincarnation  of  the  Greek  ducftion 
spirit  of  the  past.  At  the  instigation  of  Cosimo  de' 
Medici,  he  wrote  a  treatise  contrasting  the  rival !    ^ 
systems  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  naturally  giving 
the  preference  to  the  former,  but  did  not  war: 
for  the  conclusion  of  the  prolonged  literary  con- 
troversy which  this  aroused  among  the  Greekv 
scholars  in  Italy.  He  returned  to  Greece  to  share 
the  lot  of  his  countrymen,  and  at  Mistra,  the  site 
of  the  ancient  Sparta,  he  gathered  a  little  band  of 
followers  round  him,  and  established  his  reli- 
gion, with  ceremonial  rites,  prayers,  and  hymns. 
He  did  not  live  to  see  the  final  downfall  of  the 
Greek  Empire,  but  died,  in  extreme  old  age,  some 
time  before  Mohammed  II  stormed  Constantino- 
ple. The  story  need  not  be  retold  here  of  how,  in 
1465,  when  Sigismondo  Malatesta  was  command- 
ing the  Venetian  forces  in  the  Morea,  he  besieged  j 
and  captured  Mistra,  and  brought  thence  the  ashes  ; 
of  Gemistus  to  Rimini,  where  they  were  placed  ' 
in  a  tomb  outside  Leon  Battista  Alberti's  newly 
built  church  of  San  Francesco:  the  shrine  of  a 
saint  of  Humanism. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  seeds  that  Gemistus  had 
sown  in  Florence  had  borne  fruit  in  the  mind  of 
Cosimo  de'  Medici.  He  had  conceived  the  idea  of 
making  Florence  the  centre  of  Platonic  philoso- 
phy, and  of  creating  a  Platonic  Academy  on  the 
model  of  that  which  had  existed  in  Athens.  He 

xiii 


Intro-  found  the  instrument  he  needed  in  the  person  of 
dudlion  Marsilio  Ficino,  the  son  of  a  physician  of  Figline 
in  the  Valdarno,  whom  he  bade  abandon  his  fa- 
ther's profession,  and  look  to  healing  men's  minds 
rather  than  their  bodies.  In  1463, he  commissioned 
him  to  produce  a  complete  Latin  translation  of 
Plato's  dialogues,  giving  him  a  farm  near  the  Me- 
dicean  villa  at  Careggi  and  a  house  in  Florence 
itself,  that  he  might  be  enabled  to  work  in  ease 
and  comfort.  The  translation  took  about  fourteen 
years  and  was  finished  in  1477;  but  when  Cosimo 
lay  on  his  deathbed,  in  1464,  it  was  sufficiently 
advanced  for  Marsilio  to  comfort  his  last  hours 
with  the  reading  of  his  version  of  the  "Philebus." 
"Even  till  the  last  day,"  wrote  Marsilio  to  Lo- 
renzo de'  Medici,  "when  he  departed  from  this 
world  of  shadows  to  go  to  light,  he  devoted  him- 
self to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  For,  when 
we  had  read  together  Plato's  book  on  the  origin 
of  the  Universe  and  the  Supreme  Good,  he,  as 
you  who  were  present  well  know,  soon  after 
quitted  this  life,  as  though  now  in  very  deed  to 
possess  the  fullness  of  that  Good  which  he  had 
tasted  during  our  conversation."5 

One  of  Marsilio's  earlier  works,  perhaps  the  only 
one  still  read  except  by  specialists,  is  his  exposition 
ofPlato's"Symposium,"entitIed"SoprarAmore." 
Written  first  in  Latin,  it  was  translated  by  the 
author  himself  into  Italian.  It  purports  to  be  an 
account  of  a  banquet  celebrated,  apparently 
xiv 


about  1470,  in  the  villa  of  Careggi,  at  the  desire  Intro- 
of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  to  renew  the  custom  of  ducftion 
the  Platonists  of  old,  who  thus  commemorated 
the  anniversary  of  the  birth  and  death  of  Plato, 
which  were  supposed  to  fall  on  November  7.  The 
guests  are  nine  in  number,  because  nine  is  the 
number  of  the  Muses:  Antonio  degli  Agli,  Maestro 
Ficino  (the  author's  father),  Cristoforo  Landini, 
Bernardo  Nuti,Tommaso  Benci,  Giovanni  Caval- 
canti,  Cristoforo  and  Carlo  Marsuppini  (the  sons 
of  the  more  famous  Carlo  Marsuppini,  who  had 
been  secretary  of  the  Republic  in  earlier  days), 
and  Marsilio  Ficino  himself.  After  the  tables  are 
cleared,  the  "Symposium"  is  read,  and  certain  of 
the  guests  in  turn  take  the  parts  of  the  speakers  in 
the  dialogue  and  interpret  them.  A  religious  note 
is  struck  at  the  outset. "  The  supreme  Love  of  the 
Divine  Providence,"  writes  Marsilio,  "to  recall  us 
to  the  right  way  [of  love]  which  we  had  lost,  in- 
spired of  old  in  Greece  a  most  chaste  woman 
named  Diotima,  a  priestess;  who,  finding  the  phi- 
losopher Socrates  especially  consecrated  to  love, 
revealed  to  him  what  this  ardent  desire  was,  and  • 
how  we  can  fall  thereby  into  the  greatest  evil, 
and  how  we  can  ascend  thereby  to  the  Supreme 
Good.  .  .  .  May  the  Holy  Spirit  of  Divine  Love, 
who  inspired  Diotima,  illumine  our  minds,  and  in- 
flame our  wills,  in  such  fashion  that  we  may  love 
Him  in  all  His  beautiful  works,  and  then  love  His 
works  in  Him,  and  so  come  to  rejoice  infinitely  in 

xv 


Intro-      His  infinite  Beauty."6  Marsilio  reads  into  the  dis- 
dudlion  courses  of  the  "Symposium"  the  mystical  doc- 
trine of  beauty  as  a  splendour  reflected  from  the 
Divine  Countenance  and  spiritual  love  as  the 
turning  of  the  creature  to  God. 

The  harmonising  of  Platonism  and  Christianity 
o  was  the  chief  aim  of  Marsilio's  life.  He  had  him- 
self been  troubled  with  doubts  and  difficulties, 
and  had  found  in  Platonic  philosophy  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem.  "There  are  some,"  he  writes 
to  Giovanni  Cavalcanti,  "who  wonder  why  we 
follow  Plato  with  such  observance,  he  who  seems 
to  have  dealt  only  with  paradoxes  and  won- 
ders. But  they  should  consider  that  it  is  only  the 
divine  incorruptible  things  that  exist  in  reality; 
bodily  things  only  seem  to  exist,  they  are  subjecft 
to  corruption  and  change,  and  are  no  more  than 
images  or  shadows  of  the  real.  While  the  other 
philosophers,  almost  all,  by  devoting  themselves 
to  the  study  of  material  things,  dreamed  therein 
images  of  truth,  our  Plato,  intent  upon  divine 
things,  alone  or  chief  of  all,  kept  watch.  I  hold, 
then,  that  we  should  follow  Plato  as  a  theologian 
rather  than  the  other  philosophers,  even  as  we 
should  commit  ourselves  to  vigilant  pilots  rather 
than  to  those  that  sleep."7 

But,  from  the  standpoint  of  literature,  the  most 
interesting  production  of  the  school  of  Marsilio 
Ficino  is  the  little  book  of  Pico  and  Benivieni. 
It  was  in  1479,  when  Marsilio  had  completed  his 
xvi 


Plato  and  was  about  to  apply  himself  to  the  in-  Intro- 
terpretation  of  Plotinus,  that  Giovanni  Pico  della  idudtion 
Mirandola,  then  seventeen  years  old,  came  to  j 
Florence.  At  a  social  gathering,  held  perhaps  in 
the  Medicean  palace,  he  fell  into  discussion  with 
a  Florentine  citizen,  ten  years  older  than  himself, 
Girolamo  di  Paolo  Benivieni,  and  formed  with 
him  one  of  the  most  famous  friendships  in  the 
annals  of  literature.8 

Born  in  1463,  Giovanni  Pico  was  the  youngest 
son  of  a  powerful  Lombard  feudatory  of  the  Em- 
pire, Gian  Francesco  Pico,  Count  of  Mirandola 
and  Concordia;  his  mother,  Giulia  Boiardo,  was 
an  aunt  of  the  poet  count  of  Scandiano,  Matteo 
Maria  Boiardo.  His  elder  brother,  Galeotto,  who 
ruled  the  fiefs  of  the  family,  and  who  was  mar- 
ried to  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Este,  was  a  fierce 
soldier,  whom  Savonarola  in  vain  exhorted  to 
repentance,  and  who  excited  the  wonder  of  his 
contemporaries  by  defying  a  papal  excommu- 
nication for  sixteen  years  until  his  death.  Gio- 
vanni Pico's  extraordinary  beauty  and  romantic 
character  won  him  the  hearts  of  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici  and  the  intellectual  society  of  Florence; 
and  his  strange  and  varied  learning  aroused  the 
greatest  admiration  among  all.  To  Poliziano  he 
was  "omnium  docftrinarum  lux;"  to  Machiavelli, 
"uomo  quasiche  divino;"  while  Savonarola  de- 
scribes him  as  "inter  perrara  naturae  miracula 
perspicacitate  ingenii  et  dodlrinae  sublimitate 

xvii 


Intro-  olim  connumerandus."9  Nevertheless,  his  erudi- 
ducflion  tion  was  little  more  than  a  medley  of  scholasti- 
cism, Neo-Platonic  philosophy,  and  occult  sci- 
ence, which  he  had  failed  to  digest.  A  convidlion 
abode  with  him  that  his  life  would  be  short.  "It 
is  a  happy  thing,"  he  writes  in  a  sonnet,  "when 
Heaven  is  friendly  to  us,  to  die  young;  to  com- 
plete one  day  then,  is  better  than  to  -wait  until 
the  evening."  Loved  by  many  women  as  well  as 
by  men,  Pico  wrote  five  bookl_QLerQJJciyerse  in 
Latin  elegiacs,  which  he^ afterwards,  destroyed, 
and  sonnets  in  the  vernacular,  a  certain  number 
of  which  have  come  down  to  us,  and  show  him 
to  have  been  but  a  mediocre  poet.  After  his  chal- 
lenge to  the  world  at  Rome  in  1486,  to  dispute 
his  nine  hundred  conclusions,  thirteen  of  which 
were  declared  heretical,  or  at  least  "male  so- 
nantes,"  he  finally  (after  many  adventures  and  a 
brief  imprisonment)  retired  to  the  villa  of  Quer- 
ceto,  near  Fiesole.  There  he  composed  his  "  Hep- 
taplus,"  a  wild  and  fantastic  book  on  the  seven- 
fold meaning  of  the  six  days  of  creation  (dedi- 
cated to  Lorenzo  de'  Medici),  and  another,  "De 
Ente  et  Uno,"  addressed  to  Poliziano,  in  which  he 
attempted  to  reconcile  Aristotle  and  Plato,  and 
to  harmonise  the  transcendence  and  the  imma- 
nence of  God,  but  only  succeeded,  it  has  been 
said,  in  reducing  the  Deity  to  a  mere  abstrac- 
\  tion.10  His  favourite  maxim  was:  "There  is  no 
philosophy  that  leads  us  away  from  the  truths  of 
xviii 


mysteries ; "  and  his  dream  was  to  form  a  synthesis  Intro- 
of  all  knowledge,  and  reconcile  it  with  Christian-  dudlion 
ity.He  planned  a  vast  series  of  treatises,"  Adver- 
sus  hostes  Ecclesiae,"  but  only  completed  the 
twelve  books  of  disputations  "  In  Astrologiam," 
a  work  that  roused  the  orthodox  enthusiasm  of 
Savonarola. 

The  elder  partner  in  this  great  friendship  was 
a  man  of  a  spiritually  less  adventurous  type. 
Girolamo  Benivieni  was  born  in  1453,  the  son  of 
a  notary  of  Florence.  An  elder  brother,  Antonio, 
gained  renown  as  a  physician ;  a  younger,  Domen- 
ico,  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  philosophy, 
held  a  chair  in  the  university  of  Pisa  at  the  age 
of  nineteen,  and  became  a  canon  of  San  Lorenzo. 
But  Girolamo  himself  was  prevented  by  perpet-  ^ 
ual  ill-health  from  adopting  any  profession,  and, 
rather  than  remain  a  burden  upon  his  father,  he 
seems  to  have  sought  the  favour  of  princes  as 
a  court  poet— of  Giulio  Cesare  da  Varano,  the 
lord  of  Camerino,  and  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  —re- 
luctantly, we  may  surmise,  as  he  was  afflicfted 
with  a  melancholy  humour  and  tempted  to  sui- 
cide, not  one  to  be  at  home  in  the  atmosphere 
of  a  Court.  Celibate  throughout  a  long  life,  Girola- 
mo's  inclinations  all  tended  towards  religion,  and  ' 
the  blameless  poems  that  he  wrote  seemed  to 
him,  later  in  life,  pernicious  and  wanton.  He  had 
already  published  his  "Buccolica,"  a  series  of 
eclogues  in  terza  rima,  depidling  current  events 

xix 


Intro-  under  the  pastoral  disguise;  he  had  composed 
ducftion  narrative  poems  in  ottava  rima,  and  love  son- 
nets and  canzoni  in  imitation  of  the  poets  of  the 
"dolce  stil  nuovo,"  of  Dante,  and  of  Petrarch— 
which  he  was  afterwards  to  rewrite  and  interpret 
from  the  ascetic  standpoint.  But  it  is  to  his  col- 
laboration with  Pico  that  he  owes  what  has  sur- 
vived of  his  literary  fame. 

The  "  Canzone  dello  Amore  secondo  la  mente 
e  opinione  de'  Platonic! "  is  described  by  Beni- 
vieni  himself  as  an  attempt  to  sum  up  in  a  few 
verses  what  Marsilio  Ficino  had  described  at 
length  in  his  commentary  upon  the  "Sympo- 
sium" of  Plato.  It  had  been  written  some  time 
before  it  appeared,  in  1487,  accompanied  by  the 
commentary  which  is  Pico's  only  important  work 
in  the  vernacular,— the  result,  doubtless,  of  the 
discussions  that  the  two  had  held  together  on  a 
topic  so  dear  to  both  their  hearts.  Benivieni  was 
not  a  great  poet,  and  the  canzone  (which,  in  the 
Italian,  is  modelled  upon  the  structure  of  Pe- 
trarch's 'T  vo  pensando  e  nel  penser  m'  assale  "),  in 
spite  of  its  noble  and  elevated  didlion,  is  scarcely 
a  masterpiece.  But,  rehandling  the  theme  of 
Guido  Cavalcanti's  poem  as  to  the  nature,  source, 
and  effedls  of  love,  in  the  language  of  the  Neo- 
Platonism  of  the  writer's  own  day,  it  is  a  most 
characteristic  literary  fruit  of  the  movement  that, 
in  the  field  of  painting,  produced  both  the  Venus 
and  the  prophetic  Madonna  of  Botticelli. 
xx 


The  adlual  commentary  is  the  least  part  of  Intro- 
Pico's  discourse,  and  occupies  only  the  third  book,  ducftion 
In  the  first  book  he  gives  his  own  general  philo-   j   V 
sophical  scheme  of  God  and  the  world,  a  rather 
confused  medley  of  Neo-Platonism  and  other 
theories.  Beneath  God,  and  created  immediately 
by  Him,  between  the  intelligible  and  sensible 
worlds,  is  "  a  creature  of  incorporeal  and  intel- 
lectual nature,  as  perfect  as  it  is  possible  for  a 
created  thing  to  be,"  which  is  the  first  created 
mind.  "This  first  created  mind  is  called  by  Plato, 
as  also  by  the  ancient  philosophers,  Mercurius 
Trismegistus  and  Zoroaster,  now  Son  of  God,  now 
Mind,  now  Wisdom,  now  Divine  Reason;  which 
some  again  interpret,  Word.  But  we  must  take/ 
diligent  heed  not  to  believe  that  this  is  He  whoj 
by  our  theologians  is  called  the  Son  of  God ;  for, 
by  the  Son  of  God,  we  understand  one  same 
essence  with  the  Father,  equal  to  Him  in  all  things, 
creator  in  fine  and  not  creature;  but  what  Plato-  ( 
nists  call  the  Son  of  God  should  rather  be  com- 
pared to  the  first  and  most  noble  Angel  produced 
by  God."11  As  Mr.  Rigg  points  out,  this  is  a  con- 
fusion of  the  dodlrine  of  Plotinus,  concerning  the 
first  emanation  from  the  Godhead,  with  various 
other  mystical  theories  — but  I  hardly  think  we 
need  suppose  that  Pico  had  abandoned  the  or-/ 
thodox  position.12  The  Neo-PIatonists  of  the  Re- 
naissance seem  to  have  been  content  to  hold  the 
Christian  and  the  philosophical  doctrine  of  the 

xxi 


Intro-  Word  side  by  side.  It  may  be  noticed  that  there 
dudlion  is  a  somewhat  analogous  inconsistency  in  Dante's 
"Convivio,"  whereby  the  lady  of  the  poet's 
worship  seems  at  times  a  symbol  of  the  second 
Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  (though  under  a 
purely  impersonal  aspedl),  and  at  others  a  mere 
abstraction  of  Wisdom  in  an  idealized  human 
being.  This  confusion,  such  as  it  is,  is  avoided  in 
the  mystical  system  of  an  earlier  writer  of  the 
Quattrocento,  San  Lorenzo  Giustinian,  by  identi- 
fying the  Wisdom,  of  which  philosophy  is  the 
"amoroso  uso,"  with  the  theological  conception 
of  Christ  as  the  Wisdom  of  the  Father. I3 

In  the  second  book  we  have  the  essence  of  the 
whole  discourse.  It  gives  us  the  clearest  and  most 
systematical  exposition  of  that  mystical  creed  of 
love  and  beauty,  already  formulated  by  Marsilio 
Ficino,  which  appealed  so  alluringly  to  many  of 
the  finest  minds  of  the  Renaissance,  and  was,  a 
little  later,  to  find  more  rapturous  expression  on 
the  lips  of  Bembo  in  the  "  Cortegiano"  of  Baldas- 
sare  Castiglione."We  should  call  beauty,"  wrote 
Marsilio,  "a  certain  lively  and  spiritual  grace,  the 
which  by  the  divine  ray  is  first  infused  into 
the  Angels,  then  into  the  souls  of  men,  and  after 
this,  so  far  and  in  as  much  as  it  may  be  commu- 
nicated, into  corporeal  figures  and  words,  and 
mundane  material.  And  this  grace,  by  means  of 
reason  and  sight  and  hearing,  moveth  and  de- 
lighteth  our  mind,  and  in  the  delight  doth  ravish, 
xxii 


and  in  ravishing  doth  kindle  with  ardent  love/'14  Intro- 
The  more  perfect  human  lovers,  says  Pico,  "are  ducftion 
those  that,  remembering  a  more  perfect  Beauty 
that  their  souls  saw  of  old,  before  they  were  fet- 
tered to  the  body,  are  kindled  with  an  incredi- 
ble desire  of  rebeholding  that  Beauty;  and  to 
the  end  that  they  may  obtain  this  purpose,  they 
Jthems^  the 


body,  in  such  fashion  that  the  soul  returnetK  to 
her  pristine  dignity,  becometh  entirely  mistress 
of  the  body,  and  is  no  longer  subject  to  it  in  any 
wise.  And  then  is  the  soul  in  that  love  which  is 
the  image  of  celestial  love,  and  this  atone  is  the 
k^mfl"  lr>yg>  ffpat.  fran  hft  fift|lftd  pp.rfort  When  a 
man  has  reached  this  stage  of  love,  he  can  go  on 
increasing  from  perfection  to  perfection,  until  at 
last  he  cometh  to  such  a  grade  of  perfectedness 
that,  uniting  his  soul  entirely  with  the  under- 
standing, he  is  changed  from  man  to  Angel;  and 
all  inflamed  with  that  angelical  love,  utterly 
purged  from  all  the  dross  and  stains  of  the  earthly 
body,  he  is  transformed  into  a  spiritual  flame 
by  the  power  of  love,  and,  flying  up  even  to  the 
intelligible  heaven,  he  reposeth  blissfully  in  the 
arms  of  the  Primal  Father."  IS 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  said  that  this  is  magnifi- 
cent, but  not  practical  religion.  So  Pico  and  Beni- 
vieni  seem  to  have  found,  when  they  heard  a 
simpler  creed  from  the  lips^of^Savonftfo^  Pl£nj 
who  was  one  of  those  who  stood  by  the  deathbed 

xxiii 


Intro-  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  confided  to  his  nephew 
dudtion  his  intention  of  giving  all  his  substance  to  the 
poor,  and,  arming  himself  with  the  crucifix,  walk- 
ing barefoot  through  the  world,  to  speak  of 
Christ  in  every  town  and  village.  This,  however, 
was  not  to  be.  He  had  been  told  that  he  would 
die  in  the  time  that  the  lilies  flowered,  and  he 
passed  away,  comforted  in  his  last  moments 
by  a  vision  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  in  November, 
1494,  as  the  golden  lilies  on  the  royal  standard 
of  France  were  being  borne  in  triumph  through 
the  Porta  San  Frediano.  Benivieni  cast  his  Plato 
*  aside,  and  became  the  poet  of  the  Piagnoni.  He 
revived  Jacopone's  docftrine  that  madness  for 
Christ's  sake  is  true  wisdom,  and  wrote  the  laude 
that  Savonarola's  adherents  sang  in  their  pro- 
cessions through  Florence.  He  came  to  regard 
his  Platonic  canzone  as  written  "  in  another  style 
than  that  of  the  book  of  life,"  and  tried  to  coun- 
teract it  by  another,  a  "Canzone  dello  Amore 
celeste  e  divino  secondo  la  verita  cristiana  e  della 
fede  cattolica,"  which  soon  fell  into  oblivion.16 
In  spite  of  his  friendly  relations  with  the  younger 
branch  of  the  Medici,  he  still  kept  the  ideals  of 
Savonarola,  not  only  in  his  heart,  but  on  his 
tongue— though  they  never  carried  him  so  far  as 
even  passive  resistance  to  the  government.  The 
old  poet's  voice  was  heard  for  the  last  time  in 
November,  1^30,  two  months  after  the  surrender 
of  Florence  to  the  imperial  army  and  the  final 
xxiv 


downfall  of  the  Republic,  when  he  addressed  Intro- 
a  letter  to  Pope  Clement,  affirming  his  unshaken  dudlion 
belief  that  Fra  Girolamo  was  a  true  prophet. 
Twelve  years  later,  in  1542,  being  nearly  ninety     ~n 
years  old,  he  died,  and  was  buried  with  his  be- 
loved Pico  in  San  Marco. 

This  theme  of  Platonic  love  inspired  several 
writers  in  Italian  in  the  early  sixteenth  cen- 
tury to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  Ficino  and  Pico. 
Works  like  the  "Libro  di  Natura  d'Amore"  of 
Ariosto's  friend  and  correspondent,  Mario  Equi- 
cola,  or  the  "Dialogo  della  infinita  d'Amore"  of 
the  Spanish-Roman  courtesan,  Tullia  d'  Aragona, 
have  little  interest  or  spiritual  significance;  but 
a  higher  note  is  struck  in  the"Dialoghi  di  Amore" 
of  Leone  Abarbanel,  known  as  Leone  Ebreo,  a 
Jewish  physician  of  Portuguese  descent  whose 
family  had  settled  in  Naples.  Recent  research  has 
shown  that  Leone  died  in  1^42,  the  same  year  as 
Benivieni,  but  these  "  Dialoghi,"  discourses  upon 
love  between  Philoneand  Sophia,  appear  to  have 
been  written  in  the  first  or  second  decade  of  the 
Cinquecento.I7The  originality  of  the  book  lies  in 
the  author's  standpoint.  Whereas  the  other  think- 
ers of  this  school  are  concerned  in  harmonising 
Plato  with  Christianity,  Leone  Abarbanel  strives  Q  / 
to  show  that  Platonism  is  in  accordance  with 
Judaism,  and  thus  to  do  for  his  co-religionists 
what  Ficino  and  Pico  had  done  for  theirs. 

But  it  is  in  the  glorious  prose  poetry  of  the  clos- 

XXV 


Intro-      ing  pages  of  the  "  Cortegiano"  that  this  mystical 

dudlion  religion  of  Love  and  Beauty  was  to  find  its  last 

and  most  perfedt  utterance.  Let  us  end,  then,  with 

the  prayer  that  Castiglione  puts  upon  the  lips  of 

Bembo: 

"What  mortal  tongue  then,  O  most  holy  Love, 
can  worthily  praise  thee?  . . .  Vouchsafe,  Lord,  to 
hearken  to  our  prayers.  Infuse  Thyself  into  our 
hearts,  and,  with  the  splendour  of  Thy  most  holy 
fire,  illumine  our  darkness,  and,  like  a  trusted 
guide  in  this  blind  labyrinth,  show  us  the  true 
way.  Do  Thou  correct  the  falseness  of  the  senses, 
and,  after  long  wandering  in  vanity,  grant  unto 
us  the  true  and  sound  joy.  Make  us  to  smell  those 
spiritual  odours  that  vivify  the  virtues  of  the  un- 
derstanding, and  to  hear  the  heavenly  harmony 
with  such  ineffable  melody,  that  no  discord  of 
passion  may  any  more  have  place  within  us.  Do 
Thou  inebriate  us  at  that  inexhaustible  fountain 
of  contentation  that  always  doth  delight  and 
never  doth  satiate,  and  that  giveth  a  taste  of  true 
beatitude  to  all  that  drink  of  its  living  and  limpid 
waters.  With  the  rays  of  Thy  light,  purge  Thou 
our  eyes  from  misty  ignorance,  that  they  may 
no  more  prize  mere  mortal  beauty,  and  that  they 
may  know  that  the  things  that,  at  the  first,  they 
thought  themselves  to  see,  are  not,  and  those  that 
they  saw  not,  are  in  very  sooth.  Accept,  Lord, 
our  souls  that  are  offered  unto  Thee  in  sacrifice. 
Burn  them  in  the  living  flame  that  consumeth  all 
xxvi 


gross  filthiness,  in  order  that,  utterly  separated  Intro- 
from  the  body,  they  may  be  united  by  an  ever-  dudlion 
lasting  and  most  sweet  bond  to  the  Divine  Beauty. 
And  may  we,  alienated  from  ourselves,  be  trans- 
formed like  true  lovers  into  the  beloved;  and, be- 
ing uplifted  from  the  earth,  may  we  be  admitted 
to  the  banquet  of  the  Angels,  where,  fed  with 
ambrosia  and  immortal  nedlar,  we  may  at  last 
die  a  most  blissful  and  life-giving  death— even  as 
once  did  those  Fathers  of  the  olden  time,  whose 
souls,  with  most  ardent  virtue  of  contemplation, 
Thou  didst  ravish  from  the  body,  and  didst  join 
them  with  God." 

We  can  claim  for  Stanley's  "Pico"  a  place,  albeit  j 
a  humble  one,  by  the  side  of  Hoby's  version  of  the 
"Courtier,"  published  a  century  earlier.  Thomas 
Stanley,  is  better  known  by  his  charming  lyrics 
and  his  excellent  translations  from  Anacreon.  The 
"  Platonick  Discourse"  was  published  in  16^1,  when  , 
he  was  twenty-seven  years  old,  together  with  a 
reissue  of  his  "Poems," his  "Anacreon,"  and  va- 
rious other  translations  from  his  hand.  It  was  re- 
printed in  the  second  volume  of  his  "  History  of 
Philosophy,"  published  in  1656,  and  in  subsequent 
editions  of  that  rather  ponderous  work;  but  has 
not  hitherto  been  reissued  separately.  His  render- 
ing of  Benivieni's  canzone  (which  he  quaintly 
calls  a  "  sonnet,"  and  of  which  he  reduces  the 
metrical  arrangement  to  rhyming  couplets)  has 
some  poetical  fire,  and  his  translation  of  Pico's 

xxvii 


Intro-      commentary,  which  is  considerably  abridged, 

ducftion  has  at  least  the  merits  of  a  noble  English  style  and 

greater  clarity  than  the  original.  It  is  one  of  the 

latest,  but  not  the  less  delightful  and  typical,  fruits 

of  the  Italian  Renaissance  in  English  literature. 

Edmund  G.  Gardner 


December  8,  1913 


A  PLATONICK  DISCOURSE 

UPON  LOVE 

Written  in  Italian  by 

JOHN  PICUS  MIRANDULA 

In  Explication  of  a  Sonnet  by 

Hieronimo  Benivieni 

A 

[Printed  in  the  Year  \6s\~\ 


i 


THE  FIRST  BOOK 
I 

T  is  a  Principle  of  the  Platonists,  That  every 
created  thing  hath  a  threefold  being:  Causal, 
Formal,  Participated.  In  the  Sun  there  is  no  heat, 
that  being  but  an  elementary  quality, not  of:Ge* ;  >  t 
lestial  nature:  yet  is  the  Sun  the  cause  and'Foyn-  > , , 
tain  of  all  heat.  Fire  is  hot  by  nature,  and  its  prop'6f 
form :  Wood  is  not  hot  of  itself,  yet  is  capable 
of  receiving  that  quality  by  Fire.  Thus  hath  heat 
its  Causal  being  in  the  Sun,  its  Formal  in  the 
Fire,  its  Participated  in  the  Fuel.  The  most  noble 
and  perfecft  of  these  is  the  Causal :  and  therefore 
Platonists  assert,  That  all  excellencies  are  in  God 
after  this  manner  of  being :  That  in  God  is  noth- 
ing, but  from  him  all  things;  That  Intelledt  is  not 
in  him,  but  that  he  is  the  original  spring  of  every/ 
Intelledt.  Such  is  Plotinus's  meaning,  when  he  af- 
firms, "  God  neither  understands  nor  knows ; "  that 
is  to  say,  after  a  formal  way.  As  Dionysius  Areo- 
pagita,  "God  is  neither  an  Intellectual  nor  Intelli- 
gent nature,  but  unspeakably  exalted  above  all 
Intellect  and  Knowledge." 


The  First  II 

Book  1  latonists  distinguish  Creatures  into  three  de- 

grees. The  first  comprehends  the  corporeal  and 
visible,  as  Heaven,  Elements,  and  all  compounded 
of  them:  The  last  the  invisible, incorporeal,  abso- 
lutely free  from  bodies  which  properly  are  called 
Intellectual  (by  Divines,  Angelical)  Natures.  Be- 
'•, ;'  \ ;  twixt  these  is  a  middle  nature,  which  though 
,  .-,..;  incorporeal, invisible, immortal,yet  moveth  bod- 
ifeis,  as  being  obliged  to  that  office;  called,  the  ra- 
tional soul;  inferiour  to  Angels,  superiour  to  Bodies; 
subject  to  those,  regent  of  these:  above  which  is 
God  himself;  author  and  principle  of  every  Crea- 
ture, in  whom  Divinity  hath  a  causal  being ;  from 
whom  proceeding  to  Angels  it  hath  a  formal  be- 
ing, and  thence  is  derived  into  the  rational  soul 
by  participation  of  their  lustre:  below  which  no 
nature  can  assume  the  title  of  divine. 


Ill  The  First 

1  hat  the  first  of  these  three  Natures  cannot  be  Book 
multiplyed,  who  is  but  one,  the  principle  and 
cause  of  all  other  Divinity,  is  evidently  proved  by 
Platonists,  Peripateticks,  and  our  Divines.  About 
the  second,  (viz.)  the  Angelick  and  Intellectual, 
Platonists  disagree.  Some  (as  Proclus,  Hermias, 
Syrianus,  and  many  others)  betwixt  God  and  the 
rational  Soul  place  a  great  number  of  creatures ; 
part  of  these  they  call  Noera,  voepa,  Intelligible; 
part  Intellectual :  which  terms  Plato  sometimes 
confoundeth;  as  in  his  "Phaedo."  Plotinus,  Por- 
phyrius,  and  generally,  the  most  refined  Plato-, 
nists,  betwixt  God  and  the  Soul  of  the  World  as- 
signe  onely  one  creature  which  they  call  the  Son 
of  God,  because  immediately  produced  by  him.  I  ' 
The  first  opinion  complies  most  with  Dionysius  l 
Areopagita,and  Christian  Divines,  who  assert  the 
number  of  Angels  to  be  in  a  manner  infinite.  The 
second  is  the  more  Philosophick,  best  suiting 
with  Aristotle  and  Plato;  whose  sense  we  onely 
purpose  to  expresse;  and  therefore  will  decline 
the  first  path  (though  that  only  be  the  right)  to 
pursue  the  latter. 


The  First  IV 

Book  We  therefore  according  to  the  opinion  of  Ploti- 
nus  confirmed  not  onely  by  the  best  Platonists, 
but  even  by  Aristotle  and  all  the  Arabians,  espe- 
cially Avicenna,  affirm,. That  God  from  eternity 
T  produced  a  creature  of  incorporeal  and  intellec- 
[  tual  nature,  as  perfect  as  is  possible  for  a  created 
being, beyond  which  he  produced  nothing;  for  of 
the  most  perfect  cause  the  effecft  must  be  most 
perfect:  and  the  most  perfect  can  be  but  one;  for 
of  two  or  more  it  is  not  possible  but  one  should  be 
more  or  lesse  perfect  than  the  rest,  otherwise  they 
would  not  be  two,  but  the  same.  This  reason  for 
our  opinion  I  rather  choose  than  that  which  Avi- 
cen  alledges,  founded  upon  this  principle,  That 
from  one  cause,  as  one,  can  proceed  but  one  ef- 
fect. We  conclude,  therefore,  that  no  creature  but 
this  first  minde  proceeds  immediately  from  God : 
for  of  all  other  effects  issuing  from  this  minde, 
and  all  other  second  causes,  God  is  onely  the  medi- 
ate efficient.  This  by  Plato,  Hermes,  and  Zoroas- 
ter is  called  the  Daughter  of  God,  the  Minde,  Wis- 
dom, Divine  Reason,  by  some  interpreted  the 
Word:  not  meaning  (with  our  Divines)  the  Son  of 
God,  he  not  being  a  creature,  but  one  essence  co- 
equal with  the  Creator. 


V  The  First 

All  understanding  agents  have  in  themselves  Book 
the  form  of  that  which  they  design  to  effect :  as 
an  Architect  hath  in  his  minde  a  figure  of  the 
building  he  undertakes,  which  as  his  pattern  he 
exactly  strives  to  imitate:  This  Platonists  call  the! 
Idea  or  Exemplar,  believing  it  more  perfect,  than  \ 
that  which  is  made  after  it:  and  this  manner  of  ' 
Being,  Ideal  or  Intelligible,  the  other  Material  an< 
Sensible:  So  that  when  a  Man  builds  a  house,  the] 
affirm  there  are  two,  one  intellectual  in  the  Work- 
man's minde;  the  other  sensible,  which  he  makes 
in  Stone,  Wood,  or  the  like;  expressing  in  that 
matter  the  form  he  hath  conceived:  to  this  Dante 
alludes 

"  —  None  any  work  can  frame 
Unlesse  himself  become  the  same." 

Hereupon  they  say,  though  God  produced  onely 
one  creature,  yet  he  produced  all,  because  in  it 
he  produced  the  Ideas  and  forms  of  all,  and  that 
in  their  most  perfect  being,  that  is  the  Ideal,  for 
which  reason  they  call  this  Minde,  the  Intelligible 
World. 


The  First  VI 

Book  After  the  pattern  of  that  Minde  they  affirm  this 
sensible  World  was  made,  and  the  exemplar  be- 
ing the  most  perfecfl  of  all  created  things,  it  must 
follow  that  this  image  thereof  be  as  perfecfl  as 
its  nature  will  bear.  And  since  animate  things  are 
more  perfecft  than  the  inanimate;  and  of  those 
the  rational  than  the  irrational,  we  must  grant, 
this  World  hath  a  soul  perfecft  above  all  others. 
This  is  the  first  rational  soul,  which,  though  in- 
corporeal and  immaterial,  is  destin'd  to  the  func- 
tion of  governing  and  moving  corporeal  Nature: 
not  free  from  the  body  as  that  minde  whence 
from  Eternity  it  was  deriv'd,  as  was  the  Minde 
from  God.  Hence  Platonists  argue  the  World  is 
eternal;  its  soul  being  such,  and  not  capable  of 
being  without  a  body,  that  also  must  be  from 
Eternity;  as  likewise  the  motion  of  the  Heavens, 
because  the  Soul  cannot  be  without  moving. 


8 


VII  The  First 

1  he  ancient  Ethnick  Theologians,  who  cast  Po-  Book 
etical  vails  over  the  face  of  their  mysteries,  ex- 
press these  three  natures  by  other  names.  "  Cae- 
lum"  they  call  God  himself;  he  produced  the  first 

Mind,  "Saturn:"  Saturn  the  Soul  of  the  World, 

i/ 

"Jupiter."  "Caelum"  implies  priority  and  excel- 
lence, as  in  the  Firmament,  the  first  Heaven.  Sat- 
urn signifies  intellectual  nature,  wholly  employ  'd 
in  contemplation;  Jupiter  acflive  life,  consisting  ^ 
in  moving  and  governing  all  subordinate  to  it. 
The  properties  of  the  two  latter  agree  with  their 
Planets :  Saturn  makes  Men  Contemplative,  Ju- 
piter Imperious.  The  Speculative  busied  about 
things  above  them;  the  Pracflick  beneath  them. 


The  First  VIII 

Book  Which  three  names  are  promiscuously  used 

upon  these  grounds :  In  God  we  understand  first 
his  Excellence,  which,  as  Cause,  he  hath  above 
o  all  his  effedts;  for  this  he  is  called  "Coelus."  Sec- 
ondly the  production  of  those  effects,  which 
denotes  conversion  towards  inferiours;  in  this  re- 
spedl  he  is  sometimes  called  "Jupiter,"  but  with 
an  addition,  "Optimus,"  "Maximus."  The  first  An- 
gelick  nature  hath  more  names,  as  more  diver- 
sity. Every  creature  consists  of  Power  and  Adi: 
the  first,  Plato  in  "Philebus"  calls  Infinite:  the 
second,  Finite:  all  imperfections  in  the  Minde 
are  by  reason  of  the  first;  all  perfections,  from 
the  latter.  Her  operations  are  threefold.  About 
Superiours,  the  contemplation  of  God;  about  the 
knowledge  of  her  self;  about  Inferiours,  the  pro- 
dudtion  and  care  of  this  sensible  World:  these 
three  proceed  from  Adi.  By  Power  she  descends 
to  make  inferiour  things;  but  in  either  respedl  is 
firm  within  her  self.  In  the  two  first,  because  con- 
templative, she  is  called  "Saturn:"  in  the  third 
"Jupiter,"  a  name  principally  applied  to  her 
power,  as  that  part  from  whence  is  derived  the 
adl  of  production  of  things.  For  the  same  reason 
is  the  Soul  of  the  World,  as  she  contemplates 
her  self  or  superiours,  termed  "Saturn;"  as  she  is 
employed  in  ordering  worldly  things,  "Jupiter:" 
and  since  the  government  of  the  World  belongs 
properly  to  her;  the  contemplation  to  the  Minde; 
10 


therefore  is  the  one  absolutely  called  "Jupiter,"   The  First 
the  other  "Saturn."  Book 


ii 


I 


The  First  IX 

Book  1  his  World  therefore  (as  all  other  creatures) 

consisteth  of  a  Soul  and  Body:  the  Body  is  all 
that  we  behold,  compounded  of  the  four  Ele- 
ments. These  have  their  causal  being  in  the  Hea- 
vens (which  consist  not  of  them,  as  sublunary 
things;  for  then  it  would  follow  that  these  infe- 
riour  parts  were  made  before  the  celestial,  the 
Elements  in  themselves  being  simple,  by  con- 
course causing  such  things  as  are  compounded 
of  them):  Their  formal  being  from  the  Moon 
down  to  the  Earth:  Their  participate  and  imper- 
fecfl  under  the  Earth,  evident  in  the  Fire,  Air, 
and  Water  experience  daily  findes  there;  evinc'd 
by  natural  Philosophers:  to  which  the  ancient 
Theologians  aenigmatically  allude  by  their  four 
infernal  Rivers,  Acheron,  Cocytus,  Styx,  and 
Phlegeton. 

We  may  divide  the  body  of  the  World  into 
three  parts:  Celestial,  Mundane,  Infernal:  The 
ground  why  the  Poets  feign  the  Kingdom  of  Sat- 
urn to  be  shar'd  betwixt  his  three  sons,  Jupiter, 
Neptune,  and  Pluto:  implying  onely  the  three- 
fold variation  of  this  corporeal  World;  which, 
as  long  as  it  remains  under  Saturn,  that  is,  in  its 
Ideal  Intellectual  being,  is  one  and  undivided; 
and  so  more  firm  and  potent:  but  falling  into 
the  hands  of  his  Sons,  that  is,  chang'd  to  this 
material  Being,  and  by  them  divided  into  three 
parts,  according  to  the  triple  existence  of  bod- 
12 


i 


ies,  is  more  infirm  and  lesse  potent,  degenerat-  The  First 
ing  from  a  spiritual  to  a  corporeal  estate.  The  Book 
first  part,  the  heavenly,  they  attribute  to  Ju- 
piter; the  last  and  lowest  to  Pluto;  the  middle 
to  Neptune.  And  because  in  this  principality  is 
all  generation  and  corruption,  the  Theologians 
express  it  by  the  Ocean,  ebbing  or  flowing  con- 
tinually :  by  Neptune  understanding  the  Power 
or  Deity  that  presides  over  Generation.  Yet  we 
must  not  imagine  these  to  be  different  souls,  dis- 
tincflly  informing  these  three  parts:  the  World  0 
her  self  being  one,  can  have  but  one  Soul ;  which 
as  it  animates  the  subterraneal  parts,  is  called 
Pluto;  the  sublunary,  Neptune;  the  celestial,  Ju- 
piter. Thus  Plato  in  "  Philebus"  averres  "by  Jove 
is  understood  a  regal  soul,"  meaning  the  princi-j 
pal  part  of  the  World  which  governs  the  other! 
This  opinion,  though  onely  my  own,  I  suppose  is 
more  true  than  the  expositions  of  the  Grecians. 


The  First  X 

Book  1M  ext  that  of  the  World,  Platonists  assigne  many 

other  rational  souls.  The  eight  principal  are  those 
of  the  heavenly  Spheres ;  which  according  to  their 
opinion  exceeded  not  that  number;  consisting  of 
the  seven  Planets,  and  the  starry  Orb.  These  are 
the  nine  Muses  of  the  Poets :  Calliope  (the  uni- 
versal soul  of  the  World)  is  first:  the  other  eight 
are  distributed  to  their  several  Spheres. 


14 


XI  The  First 

Plato  asserts,  that  "the  Author  of  the  World  Book 
made  the  mundane,  and  all  other  rational  souls, 
in  one  Cup,  and  of  the  same  Elements ;  the  uni- 
versall  soul  being  most  perfedl,  ours  least  \^ 
whose  parts  we  may  observe  by  this  division : 
Man,  the  chain  that  ties  the  World  together,  is 
placed  in  the  midst:  and  as  all  mediums  partici- 
pate of  their  extreams,  his  parts  correspond  with 
the  whole  World;  thence  called  "  Microcosmus." 
In  the  World  is  first  Corporeal  Nature,  eternal  in 
the  Heavens;  corruptible  in  the  Elements,  and 
their  compounds,  as  Stones,  Mettals,  &c.  Then 
Plants.  The  third  degree  is  of  Beasts.  The  fourth 
Rational  Souls.  The  fifth  Angelical  Mindes.  Above 
these  is  God,  their  origine.  In  Man  are  likewise 
two  bodies:  one  eternal,  the  Platonists'  " Vehi- 
culum  caeleste,"  immediately  inform'd  by  the 
rational  soul:  The  other  corruptible,  subject  to 
sight,  consisting  of  the  Elements:  Then  the  vege- 
tative faculty,  by  which  generated  and  nourished. 
The  third  part  is  sensitive  and  motive.  The  fourth 
Rational;  by  the  Latine  Peripateticks  believ'd 
the  last  and  most  noble  part  of  the  Soul:  yet 
above  that  is  the  Intellectual  and  Angelick;  the 
most  excellent  part  whereof,  we  call  the  Soul's 
Union,  immediately  joyning  it  to  God,  in  a  man- 
ner resembling  him;  as  in  the  other  Angels, 
Beasts,  and  Plants.  About  these  Platonists  differ, 
Proclus  and  Porphyrius  onely  allow  the  rational 


The  First  part  to  be  Immortal;  Zenocrates  and  Speusip- 
Book          pus  the  sensitive  also;  Numenius  and  Plotinus 
the  whole  Soul. 


16 


XII  The  First 

Ideas   have  their  causal   being   in  God,  their  Book 
formal  in  the  first  Minde,  their  participated  in  the 
rational  Soul.  In  God  they  are  not,  but  produced 
by  him  in  the  Angelick  nature,  through  this  com- 
municated to  the  Soul,  by  whom  illuminated, 
when  she  reflects  on  her  intellectual  parts,  she  re- 
ceives the  true  formes  of  things,  Ideas.  Thus  dif-  * 
fer  the  souls  of  Men  from  the  celestial:  these  in/ 
their  bodily  functions  recede  not  from  the  intel-  \ 
ledlual,  at  once  contemplating  and  governing. 
Bodies  ascend  to  them,  they  descend  not.  Those 
employ'd  in  corporeal  office  are  deprived  of  con- ' 
templation,  borrowing  science  from  sense;  to  this^ 
wholly  enclin'd;  full  of  errours.  Their  onely  means 
of  release  from  this  bondage  is  the  amatory  life; 
which  by  sensible  beauties,  exciting  in  the  soul 
a  remembrance  of  the  intellectual,  raiseth  her 
from  this  terrene  life  to  the  eternal;  by  the  flame 
of  love  refined  into  an  Angel. 


THE  SECOND  BOOK 


THE  SECOND  BOOK 
I 

THE  apprehensive  faculties  of  the  Soul  are 
employ 'd  about  truth,  and  falsehood;  as- 
senting to  one,  dissenting  from  the  other. 
The  first  is  affirmation;  the  second,  negation.  The 
desiderative  converse  in  good  and  ill;  inclining 
to  this,  declining  that.  The  first  is  Love:  the  sec- 
ond Hate.  Love  is  distinguish'd  by  its  objedls ;  if, 
of  riches,  termed  covetousness ;  of  honour,  ambi-i 
tion;  of  heavenly  things,  piety;  of  equals,  friend- 1 
ship:  these  we  exclude,  and  admit  no  other  sig- 
nification, but  "the  desire  to  possesse  what  in  it 
self,  or  at  least  in  our  esteem  is  fair:"  of  a  dif- 
ferent nature  from  the  love  of  God  to  his  Crea- 
tures, who  comprehending  all  cannot  desire  or 
want  the  beauty  and  perfections  of  another:  and 
from  that  of  friends  which  must  be  reciprocal. 
We,  therefore,  with  Plato  define  it,  "The  desire 
of  Beauty."  Desire  is  an  inclination  to  real  or  ap- 
parent good.  As  there  are  divers  kinds  of  good, 
so  of  desire.  Love  jsj^species  of  desire;  Beauty 
of  good.  Desire  is  Natural  or  Knowing.  All  crea- 
tures have  a  particular  perfection  by  participa- 
tion of  the  divine  goodness.  This  is  their  end,  in- 
cluding that  degree  of  felicity  whereof  they  are 
capable;  to  which  center  they  tend.  This  desire 
we  call  Natural;  a  great  testimony  of  divine  Provi- 

21 


y 


The       dence,  by  which  they  are  unwittingly  (as  an  ar- 
Second  row  by  the  Archer)  directed  to  their  mark.  With 
Book      this  all  Creatures  desire  God,  as  being  the  origi- 
nal good  imprinted  and  participated  in  every 
particular.  This  is  in  every  Nature,  as  more  or 
less  capable, adressed  to  ends  more  or  less  noble; 
yet  is  the  ultimate  end  of  all  the  same,  to  enjoy 
God,  as  far  as  they  may:  thus  as  the  Psalmist, 
,.     "Every  thing  worships  and  praiseth  God;"  like 
suppliants  "turning  and  offering  themselves  up 
to  him,"  saith  Theodore. 


22 


II  The 

1  he  other  Species  of  Desire  is  employed  onely  Second 
about  things  known,  given  by  Nature  that  to  P°°k 
every  apprehensive  faculty  there  might  be  a  de-  v 
siderative;  to  embrace  what  it  judgeth  good,  to 
refuse  what  it  esteemeth  evil ;  in  its  own  nature 
enclin'd  to  good.  None  ever  desir'd  to  be  miser- 
able; but  the  apprehensive  Vertue  many  times 
mistaking  Evil  for  Good,  it  oft  falls  out  that  the 
desiderative  (in  its  self  blinde)  desires  Evil.  This 
in  some  sense  may  be  said  voluntary,  for  none } 
can  force  it;  in  another  sense,  not  voluntary,  de-  \ 
ceiv'd  by  the  judgement  of  its  Companion.  This 
is  Plato's  meaning  when  he  saith,  "No  man  sins 
willingly." 


The  III 

Second  It  is  the  Property  of  every  desiderative  Vertue, 
Book      that  he  who  desires,  possesseth  in  part  the  thing 
he  desires;  in  part  not:  for  if  he  were  wholly 
deprived  of  its  Possession,  he  would  never  de- 
sire it:  this  is  verified  two  wayes.  First,  nothing 
is  desired  unless  it  be  known;  and  to  know  a 
thing,  is  in  some  sort  to  possess  it.  So  Aristotle; 
"The  Soul  is  all,  because  it  knows  all:"  And  in 
the  Psalmist,  God  saith,  "All  things  are  mine,  I 
know  them."  Secondly,  there  is  alwayes  some 
convenience  and  resemblance  betwixt  the  de- 
sirer,  and  desired:  Every  thing  delights,  and  pre- 
serves it  self  by  that,  which  by  natural  affinity  is 
most  conformable  to  it;  by  its  contrary  is  griev'd, 
!  and  consum'd.  Love  is  not  betwixt  things  unlike ; 
Repugnance  of  two  opposite  natures  is  natural 
hate.  Hate  is  a  repugnance  with  knowledge. 
j  Hence  it  followeth,  that  the  nature  of  the  de- 
'  sired,  is  in  some  manner  in  the  desirer;  other- 
wise, there  would  be  no  similitude  betwixt  them: 
/  yet  imperfedlly;  else  it  were  vain  for  it  to  seek 
what  it  entirely  possesseth. 


24 


IV  The 

As  desire  generally  follows  knowledge,  so  sev-  Second 
eral  knowing  are  annexed  to  several  desiring 
Powers.  We  distinguish  the  knowing  into  three 
degrees:  Sense,  Reason,  Intellect ;  attended  by 
three  desiderative  Vertues:  Appetite,  Elecftion, 
Will.  Appetite  is  in  Bruits;  Elecftion  in  Men; 
Will  in  Angels.  The  Sense  knows  onely  corpcP 
real  things,«^e  Appetite  onely  desires  such;  the 
Angelick  Intellect  is  wholly  intent  on  Contem- 
plation of  spiritual  Conceptions;  not  inclining  toy 
Material  Things,  but  when  devested  of  Matter, 
and  spiritualiz'd,  their  Will  is  onely  fed  with  in- 
temporal  spiritual  Good.  Rationall  Nature  is  the 
mean  betwixt  these  Extreams;  sometimes  de- 
scending to  Sense,  sometimes  elevated  to  Intel- 
lect; by  its  own  Elecftion  complying  with  the 
desires  of  which  she  pleaseth.  Thus  it  appears 
that  corporeal  objects  are  desired,  either  by  Sen- 
sual Appetite,  or  Election  of  Reason  inclining  to 
Sense:  Incorporeal  by  Angelick  Will,  or  the  Elec- 
tion of  Reason  elevated  to  Intellectual  Height. 


The  V 

Second  oeauty  in  general  is  a  "  Harmony  resulting  from 
several  things  proportionably  concurring  to  con- 
stitute a  third;"  Inrespecft  of  which  temperament 
and  mixture  of  various  Natures,  agreeing  in  the 
composition  of  one,  every  creature  is  Fair;  and  in 
this  sense  no  simple  being  is  beautiful;  not  God 
himself;  this  Beauty  begins  after  him;  arising 
from  contrariety,  without  which  is  no  composi- 
tion; it  being  the  union  of  contraries,  a  friendly 
enmity,  a  disagreeing  concord ;  whence  Empedo- 
cles  makes  discord  and  concord  the  principles  of 
all  things;  by  the  first,  understanding  the  variety 
of  the  Natures  compounding;  by  the  second, 
their  Union:  adding,  that  in  God  onely  there  is 
no  Discord,  he  not  being  the  Union  of  several 
Natures,  but  a  pure  uncompounded  Unity:  In 
these  compositions  the  Union  necessarily  pre- 
dominates over  the  contrariety;  otherwise  the 
Fabrick  would  be  dissolved.  Thus  in  the  Fidlions 
of  Poets,  Venus  loves  Mars :  this  Beauty  cannot 
subsist  without  contrariety ;  she  curbs  and  mod- 
erates him;  this  temperament  allays  the  strife 
betwixt  these  contraries.  And  in  Astrology,  Ve- 
nus is  plac'd  next  Mars,  to  check  his  destructive 
influence;  as  Jupiter  next  Saturn,  to  abate  his 
.  malignancy.  If  Mars  were  alwayes  subjedt  to 
Venus  (the  contrariety  of  principles  to  their  due 
temper),  nothing  would  ever  be  dissolved. 


26 


VI  The 

1  his  is  Beauty  in  the  largest  sense,  the^ame  with  Second 
Harmony;  whence  God  is  said  to  have  framed  Book 
the  World  with  musical  harmonious  tempera- 
ment. But  Harmony  properly  implyes  a  melodi- 
ous agreement  of  Voices;  and  Beauty  in  a  restrict 
acception  relates  to  a  proportionable  concord  in 
visible  things,  as  Harmony  in  audible.  The  de-, 
sire  of  this  Beauty  is  Love ;  arising  onely  from 
one  knowing  faculty,  the  Sight:  and  that  gave 
Plotinus  (Ennead.  3,  lib.  j,  3)  occasion  to  derive 
epws,  Love,  from  5pa<ris,  Sight.  Here  the  Platonist 
may  object;  If  Love  be  onely  of  visible  things, 
how  can  it  be  applyed  to  Ideas,  invisible  na- 
tures? We  answer,  Sight  is  twofold,  corporeal, 
and  spiritual;  the  first  is  that  of  Sense,  the  other 
the  Intellectual  faculty,  by  which  we  agree  with 
Angels;  this  Platonists  call  Sight,  the  corporeal 
being  onely  an  image  of  this.  So  Aristotle,  "  In- 
tellect is  that  to  the  Soul  which  sight  is  to  the 
Body : "  Hence  is  Minerva  (Wisdom)  by  Homer 
call'd  yXau/cwTus,  Bright-ey'd.  With  this  sight) 
Moses,  S.  Paul,  and  other  Saints,  beheld  the  face/ 
of  God:  this  Divines  call  Intellectual,  intuitive) 
cognition;  the  Beatifical  vision,  the  Reward  of 
the  Righteous. 


The  VII 

Second  As  Sight,  so  Beauty  (its  objecft)  is  twofold;  (the 
Book  two  Venus's  celebrated  by  Plato  and  our  Poet) : 
Sensible,  called  Vulgar  Venus;  Intellectual  in 
Ideas  (which  are  the  objecft  of  the  Intellecft  as 
colour  of  sight),  nam'd  Celestial  Venus.  Love  also 
is  twofold,  Vulgar  and  Celestiall;  for  as  Plato 
saith,  "There  must  necessarily  be  as  many  Loves 
as  Venus's.'1 


28 


VIII  The 

Venus  then  is  Beauty,  whereof  Love  is  gener-  Second 
ated :  properly  his  Mother,  because  Beauty  is  the  Book 
cause  of  Love,  not  as  productive  principle  of  this 
adt,  to  Love,  but  as  its  objedt :  the  Soul  being  the 
efficient  cause  of  it  as  of  all  his  acfls ;  Beauty  the 
material:  For  in  Philosophy  the  efficient  is  assimi- 
lated to  the  Father,  the  material  to  the  Mother. 


The  IX 

Second  (Celestial*  Love  is  an  Intellectual  desire  of  Ideal 
Book  Beauty:  Ideas  (as  we  said  before)  are  the  Pat- 
terns of  things  in  God,  as  in  their  Fountain;  in 
the  Angelick  Minde,  Essential;  in  the  Soul  by  Par- 
ticipation, which  with  the  Substance  partakes  of 
the  Ideas  and  Beauty  of  the  first  Minde.  Hence 
it  follows,  that  Love  of  Celestial  Beauty  in  the 
Soul,  is  not  Celestial  Love  perfectly,  but  the 
nearest  Image  of  it.  Its  truest  being  is  with  the 
desire  of  Ideal  Beauty  in  the  first  Minde,  which 
God  immediately  adorns  with  Ideas. 


X  The 

Love  (saith  Plato)  was  begot  on  Penia,  by  Porus  Second 
(the  son  of  Metis)  in  Jupiter's  Orchard,  being  Book 
drunk  with  Necflar,  when  the  Gods  met  to  cele- 
brate Venus'  birth.  Nature  in  it  self  inform,  when 
it  receives  form  from  God  is  the  Angelick 
Minde;  this  form  is  Ideas,  the  first  Beauty;  which 
in  this  descent  from  their  divine  Fountain,  mix- 
ing with  a  different  nature,  become  imperfect. 
The  first  Minde,  by  its  opacousness  eclipsing, 
their  lustre,  desires  that  Beauty  which  they  have  1 
lost;  this  desire  is  Love;  begot  when  Porus,  the 
affluence  of  Ideas,  mixeth  with  Penia,  the  indi- 
gence of  that  inform  nature  we  termed  Jupi- 
ter, in  whose  Garden  the  Ideas  are  planted ;  with 
these  the  first  Minde  adorned,  was  by  the  An- 
cients named  Paradise;  to  which  contemplative 
life  and  eternal  felicity  Zoroaster  inyiting  us, 
saith,  "Seek,  seek  Paradise:"  Our  Divines  trans- 
fer it  to  the  Coelum  Empyraeum,  the  seat  of  the 
happy  Souls,  whose  blessedness  consists  in  con- 
templation and  perfection  of  the  Intellecft,  ac- 
cording to  Plato.  This  Love  "begot  on  Venus' 
birthday,"  that  is,  when  the  Ideal  Beauty ,  though 
imperfectly,  is  infused  into  the  Angelick  Minde; 
Venus  yet  as  a  childe,  not  grown  to  perfection. 
All  the  Gods  assembled  at  this  Feast,  that  is 
their  Ideas  (as  by  Saturn  we  understand  both 
the  Planet  and  his  Idea),  an  expression  borrowed 
from  Parmenides.  These  Gods,  then,  are  those 


The        Ideas  that  precede  Venus  (she  is  the  Beauty 

Second  and  Grace  resulting  from  their  variety) : "  Invited 

Book       to  a  banquet  of  Nedlar  and  Ambrosia;"  those 

whom  God  feasts  with  Necflar  and  Ambrosia 

are  eternal  beings,  the  rest  not.  These  Ideas  of  the 

Angelick  Minde  are  the  first  eternals ;  Porus  was 

drunk  with  Necflar,  this  Ideal  affluence  fill'd  with 

Eternity;  other  Ideas  were  not  admitted  to  the 

Feast,  not  indued  with  Immortality. 

Orpheus  upon  the  same  grounds  saith,  "Love 
was  born  before  all  other  Gods,  in  the  bosome 
of  Chaos:"  Because  Nature  full  of  indistindl  im- 
perfecfl  forms  (the  Minde  replenished  with  con- 
fused Ideas)  desires  their  perfection. 


XI  The 

I  he  Angelick  Minde  desires  to  make  these  Ideas  Second 
perfecfl;  which  can  onely  be  done  by  means  op-  Book 
posite  to  the  causes  of  their  imperfecftion,  these 
are  Recession  from  their  Principle  and  mixtion 
with  contrary  Nature:  their  remedy,  separation 
from  the  unlike  Nature,  and  return  and  conjunc- 
tion (as  far  as  possible)  with  God.  Love,  the  de- 
sire of  this  Beauty,  excites  the  Minde  to  conver-, 
sion  and  re-union  with  him.  Every  thing  is  more  ^ 
perfecft  as  nearer  its  Principle;  This  is  the  first 
Circle.  The  Angelick  Minde,  proceeding  from  the 
Union  of  God,  by  revolution  of  intrinsecal  know-| 
ledge  returneth  to  him.  Which  with  the  Ancients 
is  Venus  Adulta,  grown  to  perfection.  Every 
Nature  that  may  have  this  conversion,  is  a  Cir- 
cle; such  alone  are  the  Intellectual  and  Rational, 
and  therefore  onely  capable  of  felicity,  the  ob- 
taining their  first  Principle,  their  ultimate  end 
and  highest  good.  This  is  peculiar  to  Immortal 
Substances,  for  the  Material  (as  both  Platonists 
and  Peripateticks  grant)  have  not  this  reflection 
upon  themselves,  or  their  Principle.  These  (the 
Angelick  Minde  and  Rational  Soul)  are  the  two 
intelligible  Circles;  answerable  to  which  in  the 
corporeal  World  are  two  more :  the  tenth  Heaven 
immoveable,  image  of  the  first  Circle;  the  Ce- 
lestial Bodies,  that  are  moveable,  image  of  the 
second.  The  first  Plato  mentions  not,  as  wholly 
different  and  irrepresentable  by  corporeal  Na- 

33 


The        ture:  of  the  second  in  "Timaeus"  he  saith,  that 
Second  "all  the  Circles  of  this  visible  Heaven"  (by  him 
Book       distinguished  into  the  fixed  Sphere,  and  seven 
Planets)  "  represent  as  many  Circles  in  the  Ra- 
tional Soul." 

/"•  Some  attribute  the  name  of  Circle  to  God ;  by 
the  ancient  Theologists  called  "Coelus;"  being  a 
Sphere  which  comprehends  all,  as  the  outmost 
Heaven  includes  the  World. 
Tn  one  respecft  this  agrees  with  God,  in  another 
not:  the  property  of  beginning  from  a  point  and 
,  returning  to  it,  is  repugnant  to  him;  who  hath 
no  beginning,  but  is  himself  that  indivisible  point 
from  which  all  Circles  begin,  and  to  which  they 
return.  And  in  this  sense  it  is  like  wise  inconsis- 
tent with  material  things;  they  have  a  beginning, 
but  cannot  return  to  it. 

In  many  other  properties  it  agrees  with  God; 
He  is  the  most  perfedl  of  beings;  this  of  figures: 
j  neither  admit  addition:  the  last  Sphere  is  the 
place  of  all  Bodies,  God  of  all  Spirits:  the  Soul 
(say  Platonists)  is  not  in  the  Body,  but  the  Body 
is  in  the  Soul,  the  Soul  in  the  Minde,  the  Minde 
in  God,  the  outmost  Place;  who  is  therefore  named 
by  the  Cabalists 


34 


XII  The 

1  he  three  Graces  are  Handmaids  to  Venus :  Second 
Thalia,  Euphrosyne,  Aglaia;  Viridity,  Gladnesse,  Book 
Splendour;  properties  attending  Ideal  Beauty. 
Thalia  is  the  permanence  of  every  thing  in  its  en- 
tire being;  thus  is  Youth  called  green,  Man  being 
then  in  his  perfedl  state;  which  decayes  at  his 
years'  encrease,  into  his  last  dissolution.  Venus  is 
proportion,  uniting  all  things ;  Viridity,  the  dura- 
tion of  it.  In  the  Ideal  World  where  is  the  first 
Venus,  is  also  the  first  Viridity;  for  no  Intelligible 
Nature  recedes  from  its  being  by  growing  old.  It 
communicates  this  property  to  sensible  things  as 
far  as  they  are  capable  of  this  Venus,  that  is,  as 
long  as  their  due  proportion  continues.  The  two 
other  properties  of  Ideal  Beauty  are  Illustration  of 
the  Intellecft,  Aglaia ;  Repletion  of  the  will  with 
desire  and  joy,  Euphrosyne. 

Of  the  Graces  one  is  painted  looking  toward 
us;  the  continuation  of  our  being  is  no  reflex  acft. 
The  other  two  with  their  faces  from  us,  seem- 
ing to  return;  the  operations  of  the  Intellecfl  and 
Will  are  reflexive:  "  What  comes  from  God  to  us,  ^ 
returns  from  us  to  God." 


The  XIII 

Second  Venus  is  said  to  be  born  of  the  Sea;  Matter 
Book  the  Inform  Nature,  whereof  every  Creature  is 
compounded,  is  represented  by  Water,  contin- 
ually flowing,  easily  receptible  of  any  form.  This 
being  first  in  the  Angelick  Minde,  Angels  are 
many  times  exprest  by  Water,  as  in  the  Psalms, 
"The  Waters  above  the  Heavens  praise  God  con- 
tinually;" so  interpreted  by  Origen;  and  some 
Platonists  expound  the  Ocean  (stil'd  by  Homer 
Father  of  Gods  and  Men)  this  Angelick  Minde, 
Principle  and  Fountain  of  all  other  Creatures; 
Gemistius,  Neptune;  as  Commander  of  all  Wa- 
ters, of  all  Mindes  Angelical  and  Humane.  This  is 
that  living  Fountain,  whereof  he  that  drinketh 
shall  never  thirst; These  are  the  Waters  whereon 
(David  saith)  God  hath  founded  the  World. 


36 


XIV  The 

lorus  (the  Affluence  of  Ideas  proceeding  from  Second 
God)  is  stiled  by  Plato  the  Son  of  Metis  (Coun-  Book 
sell),  in  Imitation  of  the  Scripture:  whence  our 
Saviour  by  Dionysius  Areopagita  is  termed  the 
Angel  of  Counsel,  that  is,  the  Messenger  of  God 
the  Father,  so  Avicen  calls  the  first  Cause  con- 
ciliative, the  Minde  not  having  Ideas  from  it  self 
but  from  God,  by  whose  counsel  she  receiveth 
Knowledge  and  Art  to  frame  this  visible  World. 


37 


The  XV 

Second  Love  according  to  Plato  is  "Youngest  and  Old- 
Book  est  of  the  Gods;"  They  as  all  other  things,  have 
a  twofold  Being,  Ideal  and  Natural.  The  first  God 
in  his  natural  being  was  Love,  who  dispenc'd 
theirs  to  all  the  rest,  the  last  in  his  Ideal.  Love  was 
born  in  the  Descent  of  the  Ideas  into  the  Angel- 
ick  Minde,  which  could  not  be  perfect  till  they, 
its  essence,  were  made  so,  by  Love's  conversion 
to  God.  The  Angelick  Minde  owing  its  naturall 
being  to  Love,  the  other  Gods,  who  succeed  this 
Minde,  necessarily  are  younger  than  he  in  their 
natural  Being,  though  they  precede  him  in  their 
Ideal,  as  not  born  till  these  Ideas,  though  imper- 
fedlly,  were  joyn'd  to  the  informed  Nature. 


38 


XVI  The 

1  he  Kingdom  of  Necessity  is  said  to  be  before  Second 
that  of  Love:"  Every  Creature  consists  of  two  Book 
Natures,  Material,  the  imperfecft  (which  we  here 
understand  by  Necessity),  and  Formal,  the  occa- 
sion of  perfection.  That  whereof  it  most  partakes 
is  said  to  be  predominant,  and  the  creature  to 
be  subjedt  to  it.  Hence  is  Necessity  (Matter)  sup- ! 
pos'd  to  reign  when  the  Ideas  were  imperfecft,  and/ 
all  Imperfections  to  happen  during  that  timel 
all  perfections  after  Love  began  his  reign;  for 
when  the  Minde  was  by  him  converted  to  God, 
that  which  before  was  imperfedt  in  her,  was  per- 
fecfted. 


39 


The  XVII 

Second  Venus  is  said  "to  command  Fate." The  order  and 
Book  concatenation  of  causes  and  effects  in  this  sensi- 
ble World,  called  Fate,  depends  on  the  order  of 
the  Intelligible  World,  Providence.  Hence  Pla- 
tonists  place  Providence  (the  ordering  of  Ideas) 
in  the  first  Minde,  depending  upon  God  its  ulti- 
mate end,  to  which  it  leads  all  other  things.  Thus 
Venus  being  the  order  of  those  Ideas  whereon 
Fate,  the  World's  order,  depends,  commands  it. 
Fate  is  divided  into  three  parts,  Clotho,  Lache- 
sis,  and  Atropos:  That  which  is  one  in  Provi- 
dence, indivisible  in  Eternity,  when  it  comes  into 
Time  and  Fate  is  divisible,  into  Past,  Present, 
and  Future.  Others  apply  Atropos  to  the  fixed 
Sphere,  Clotho  to  the  seven  Planets,  Lachesis  to 
sublunary  things. 

Temporal  corporeal  things  onely  are  subjected 
f  to  Fate;  the  Rational  Soul  being   incorporeal 
I  predominates  over  it;  but  is  subjected  to  Provi- 
dence, to  serve  which  is  true  Liberty.  By  whom 
the  Will  (obeying  its  Laws)  is  led  to  the  Acqui- 
sition of  her  desired  end.  And  as  often  as  she  en- 
deavours to  loose  her  self  from  this  Servitude,  of 
Free  she  becomes  a  Servant  and  Slave  to  Fate, 
of  whom  before  she  was  the  Mistress.  To  deviate 
/    from  the  Laws  of  Providence  is  to  forsake  Reason 
to  follow  Sense  and  Irrational  Appetite,  which 
being  corporeal  are  under  Fate;  he  that  serves 
these  is  much  more  a  servant  than  those  he  serves. 
40 


A  XVIII  The 

As  from  God  Ideas  descend  into  the  Angelick  Second 
Minde,  by  which  the  Love  of  Intellectual  Beauty  Book 
is  begot  in  her,  called  "  Di  vine  Love ;"  so  the  same 
Ideas  descend   from  the  Angelick  Minde  into 
,the  rational  Soul,  so  much  the  more  imperfect  in/} 
her,  as  she^ wants  of  Angelicall  Perfection:  From 
these  springs  Humane  Love.  Plato  discourseth  of 
the  first,  Plotinus  of  the  latter:  who  by  the  same 
Argument  whereby  he  proves  Ideas  not  acci- 
dental but  substantiall  in  the  Angelick  Minde, 
evinceth  likewise  the  specifical  Reasons,  the  Ideas 
in  the  Soul,  to  be  substantial,  terming  the  Soul 
"  Venus,"  as  having  a  specious  splendid  Love  in 
respecft  of  these  specifical  Reasons. 


The  XIX 

Second  Vulgar  Love  is  the  Appetite  of  sensible  Beauty, 
Book  through  corporeal  sight.  The  cause  of  this  Beauty 
is  the  visible  Heaven  by  its  moving  Power.  As  our 
motive  faculty  consists  in  Muscles  and  Nerves 
(the  Instruments  of  its  Operation),  so  the  motive 
faculty  of  Heaven  is  fitted  with  a  Body  proper 
for  circular  sempiternal  motion;  through  which 
Body  the  Soul  (as  a  Painter  with  his  Pencil) 
changeth  this  inferiour  matter  into  various  forms. 
Thus  vulgar  Venus  (the  beauty  of  material  forms) 
hath  her  causal  being  from  the  moving  power  of 
the  Heavens,  her  formal  from  colour,  enlightened 
by  the  visible  Sun  as  Ideas  by  the  invisible;  her 
participate  in  the  Figure  and  just  order  of  parts 
communicated  to  sight  by  mediation  of  light  and 
colour,  by  whose  interest  onely  it  procures  love. 


XX  The 

As  when  the  Ideas  descend  into  the  Minde,  there  Second 
ariseth  a  desire  of  enjoying  that  from  whence  ?ook 
this  Ideal  Beauty  comes;  so  when  the  species  of 
sensible  Beauty  flow  into  the  Eye,  there  springs 
a  twofold  Appetite  of  Union  with  that  whence 
this  Beauty  is  deriv'd,  one  sensuall,  the  other  ra- 
tional ;  the  Principles  of  Bestial  and  Humane  Love. 
If  we  follow  Sense,  we  judge  the  Body,  wherein 
we  behold  this  Beauty,  to  be  its  Fountain ;  whence 
proceeds  a  desire  of  Coition,  the  most  intimate 
union  with  it.  This  is  the  Love  of  irrational  Crea- 
tures. But  Reason  knows  that  the  Body  is  so 
far  from  being  its  Original,  that  it  is  destructive 
to  it,  and  the  more  it  is  sever'd  from  the  Body, 
the  more  it  enjoyes  its  own  Nature  and  Dignity: 
we  must  not  fix  with  the  species  of  Sense,  in  the^ 
Body;  but  refine  that  species  from  all  reliques  of! 
corporeal  infecftion. 

And  because  Man  may  be  understood  by  the 
Rational  Soul,  either  considered  apart,  or  in  its 
union  to  the  Body;  in  the  first  sense,  Humane j 
Love  is  the  Image  of  the  Celestial ;  in  the  second,  j 
Desire  of  sensible  Beauty;  this  being  by  the  Soul ; 
abstracted  from  matter,  and  (as  much  as  its  na- 
ture will  allow)  made  intellectual.  The  greater 
part  of  Men  reach  no  higher  than  this;  others 
more  perfedl,  remembering  that  more  perfecfl 
Beauty  which  the  Soul  (before  immerst  in  the 
Body)  beheld,  are  inflam'd  with  an  incredible 

43 


The  desire  of  reviewing  it,  in  pursuit  whereof  they 
Second  separate  themselves  as  much  as  possible  from  the 
Book  Body,  of  which  the  Soul  (returning  to  its  first  Dig- 
nity) becomes  absolute  Mistress.  This  is  the  Image 
of  Celestial  Love,  by  which  Man  ariseth  from 
one  perfection  to  another,  till  his  Soul  (wholly 
united  to  the  Intellect)  is  made  an  Angel.  Purged 
from  Material  dross  and  transformed  into  spirit- 
ual flame  by  this  Divine  Power,  he  mounts  up  to 
the  Intelligible  Heaven,  and  happily  rests  in  his 
Father's  bosome. 


44 


rw  - XXI  -^ 

)  Vulgar  love  is  onely  in  Souls  immerst  in  Matter, (Second 
and  overcome  by  it,  or  at  least  hindred  by  per-;Book 
turbations  and  passions.  Angelick  Love  is  in  the  V 
Intellect,  eternal  as  it.  Yet  but  inferr'd,  the  greater 
part  turning  from  the  Intellect  to  sensible  things';, 
and  corporeal  cares.  But  so  perfect  are  these  ce- 
lestial Souls,  that  they  can  discharge  both  Func- 
tions, rule  the  Body,  yet  not  be  taken  off  from 
Contemplation  of  Superiours:  these  the  Poets  sig- 
nifie  by  Janus  with  two  faces;  one  looking  for- 
ward upon  Sensible  things,  the  other  on  Intelli- 
gible: lesse  perfect  Souls  have  but  one  face,  and, 
when  they  turn  that  to  the  Body,  cannot  see  the ! 
Intellect,  being  depri  v'd  of  Contemplation ;  when 
to  the  Intellect,  cannot  see  the  Body,  neglecting 
the  care  thereof.  Hence  those  souls  that  must  for- 
sake the  Intellect  to  apply  themselves  to  Cor- 
poreal Government,  are  by  Divine  Providencd 
confm'd  to  caduque,  corruptible  Bodies,  loosec 
from  which,  they  may  in  a  short  time,  if  they\ 
fail  not  themselves,  return  to  their  Intellectua 
felicity.  Other  souls  not  hindred  from  Specula-*/ 
tion  are  tyed  to  eternal  incorruptible  Bodies. 

Celestial  Souls  then  (design'd  by  Janus,  as  the 
Principles  of  Time,  motion  intervening)  behold 
the  Ideal  Beauty  in  the  Intellect  to  love  it  per- 
petually; and  inferiour  sensible  things,  not  to  de- 
sire their  Beauty,  but  to  communicate  this  other 
to  them.  Our  Souls  before  united  to  the  Body  are  j  y 

45 


The    •/  in  like  manner  double  fac'd,  but  are  then  as  it 
Second  were  cleft  asunder,  retaining  but  one ;  which  as 
Book       they  turn  to  either  objedt,  Sensual  or  Intellec- 
tual, is  deprived  of  the  other. 

Thus  is  vulgar  Love  inconsistent  with  the  Celes- 
tial; and  many  ravish'd  at  the  sight  of  Intellec- 
tual Beauty,  become  blinde  to  sensible;  imply 'd 
by  Callimachus,  Hymn  j  in  the  Fable  of  Tyre- 
sias,  who  viewing  Pallas  naked,  lost  his  sight,  yet 
by  her  was  made  a  Prophet;  closing  the  eyes 
of  his  Body,  she  open'd  those  of  his  Minde,  by 
which  he  beheld  both  the  Present  and  Future. 
The  Ghost  of  Achilles,  which  inspired  Homer 
with  all  Intellectual  Contemplations  in  Poetry, 
deprived  him  of  corporeal  sight. 

Though  Celestial  Love  li veth  eternally  in  the  In- 
tellecfl  of  every  Soul,  yet  onely  those  few  make 
use  of  it,  who  declining  the  care  of  the  Body,  can 
with  S.  Paul  say,  "Whether  in  the  Body  or  out 
of  the  Body  they  know  not."  To  which  state  a 
man  sometimes  arrives;  but  continues  there  but 
a  while,  as  we  see  in  Extasies. 


XXII  The 

I  hus  in  our  Soul  (naturally  indifferent  to  sensi-  Second 
ble  or  intelligible  Beauty)  there  may  be  three  Book 
Loves;  one  in  the  Intellect,  Angelical;  the  sec-       «- 
ond  Humane;  the  third  Sensual.  The  two  latter" 
are  conversant  about  the  same  object,  Corporeal 
Beauty;  the  sensual  fixeth  its  Intention  wholly 
in  it;  the  humane  separates  it  from  Matter.  The 
greater  part  of  Mankinde  go  no  further  than 
these  two;  but  they  whose  understandings  are 
purified  by  Philosophy,  knowing  sensible  Beauty 
to  be  but  the  Image  of  another  more  perfedl, 
leave  it,  and  desire  to  see  the  Celestial,  of  which 
they  have  already  a  Taste  in  their  Remem- 
brance; if  they  persevere  in  this  Mental  Eleva- 
tion, they  finally  obtain  it;  and  recover  that, 
which  though  in  them  from  the  beginning,  yet 
they  were  not  sensible  of,  being  diverted  by 
other  objects. 


47 


THE  SONNET 


THE  SONNET 

I 
Love  (whose  hand  guides  my  Heart's 

stridl  Reins, 

Nor,  though  he  govern  it,  disdains 
To  feed  the  Fire  with  pious  care 
Which  first  himself  enkindled  there) 
Commands  my  backward  Soul  to  tell 
What  Flames  within  her  Bosome  dwell ; 
Fear  would  perswade  her  to  decline 
The  charge  of  such  a  high  designe; 
But  all  her  weak  reludtance  fails, 
'Gainst  greater  Force  no  Force  avails. 
Love  to  advance  her  flight,  wiy  lend 
Those  wings  by  which  he  did  descend 
Into  my  Heart,  where  he  to  rest 
For  ever,  long  since  built  his  Nest : 
I  what  from  thence  he  dictates  write, 
And  draw  him  thus  by  his  own  Light. 


The 

Sonnet    Love,  flowing  from  the  sacred  Spring 
Of  uncreated  Good,  I  sing : 
When  born ;  how  Heaven  he  moves ;  the  Soul 
Informs ;  and  doth  the  World  controwl ; 
How  closely  lurking  in  the  heart, 
With  his  sharp  weapon's  subtle  art 
From  heavy  earth  he  Man  unties, 
Enforcing  him  to  reach  the  skies. 
How  kindled,  how  he  flames,  how  burns ; 
By  what  laws  guided  now  he  turns 
To  Heaven,  now  to  the  Earth  descends, 
Now  rests  'twixt  both,  to  neither  bends. 
Apollo,  Thee  I  invocate, 
Bowing  beneath  so  great  a  weight. 
Love,  guide  me  through  this  dark  designe, 
And  imp  my  shorter  wings  with  thine. 


\A7 

When  from  true  Heav'n  the  sacred  Sun       Sonnet 

Into  th'  Angelick  Minde  did  run, 

And  with  enliv'ned  Leaves  adorn, 

Bestowing  form  on  his  first-born; 

Enflamed  by  innate  Desires, 

She  to  her  chiefest  good  aspires ; 

By  which  reversion  her  rich  Breast 

With  various  Figures  is  imprest; 

And  by  this  love  exalted,  turns 

Into  the  Sun  for  whom  she  burns. 

This  flame,  rais'd  by  the  Light  that  shin'd 

From  Heav'n  into  th'  Angelick  Minde, 

Is  eldest  Love's  religious  Ray, 

By  Wealth  and  Want  begot  that  Day, 

When  Heav'n  brought  forth  the  Queen, 

whose  Hand 
The  Cyprian  Scepter  doth  Command. 


The  IV 

Sonnet         1  his  born  in  amorous  Cypris' armes, 
The  Sun  of  her  bright  Beauty  warmes. 
From  this  our  first  desire  accrues, 
Which,  in  new  fetters  caught,  pursues 
The  honourable  path  that  guides 
Where  our  eternal  good  resides. 
By  this  the  fire,  through  whose  fair  beams 
Life  from  above  to  Mankinde  streams, 
Is  kindled  in  our  hearts,  which  glow 
Dying,  yet  glowing  greater  grow; 
By  this  th'  immortal  Fountain  flows, 
Which  all  Heaven  forms  below,  bestowes; 
By  this  descends  that  shower  of  light 
Which  upwards  doth  our  minds  invite; 
By  this  th'  Eternal  Sun  inspires 
And  Souls  with  sacred  lustre  fires. 


V  The 

As  God  doth  to  the  Minde  dispence  Sonnet 

Its  Being,  Life,  Intelligence, 

So  doth  the  Minde  the  Soul  acquaint 

How  t'  understand,  to  move,  to  paint; 

She  thus  prepar'd,  the  Sun  that  shines 

In  the  Eternal  Breast  designes, 

And  here  what  she  includes  diffuses, 

Exciting  every  thing  that  uses 

Motion  and  sense  (beneath  her  state) 

To  live,  to  know,  to  operate. 

Inferiour  Venus  hence  took  Birth; 

Who  shines  in  Heav'n,  but  lives  on  Earth, 

And  o'er  the  World  her  shadow  spreads : 

The  elder  in  the  Sun's  Glasse  reads 

Her  Face,  through  the  confused  skreen 

Of  a  dark  Shade  obscurely  seen; 

She  Lustre  from  the  Sun  receives, 

And  to  the  other  Lustre  gives; 

Celestial  Love  on  this  depends, 

The  younger,  vulgar  Love  attends. 


The  VI 

Sonnet       rorm'd  by  th'  eternal  Look  of  God, 
From  the  Sun's  most  sublime  abode, 
The  Soul  descends  into  Man's  Heart, 
Imprinting  there  with  wondrous  Art 
What  Worth  she  borrowed  of  Her  Starre, 
And  brought  in  her  Celestial  Carre; 
As  well  as  humane  Matter  yields, 
She  thus  her  curious  Mansion  builds; 
Yet  all  those  frames  from  the  divine 
Impression  differently  decline: 
The  Sun,  who  's  figur'd  here,  his  Beams 
Into  another's  Bosome  streams; 
In  whose  agreeing  Soul  he  stayes, 
And  guilds  it  with  his  virtuous  Rayes: 
The  Heart  in  which  Affection's  bred, 
Is  thus  by  pleasing  Errour  fed. 


VII  The 

1  he  Heart  where  pleasing  Errour  raigns,         Sonnet 
This  objedl  as  her  Childe  maintains, 
By  the  fair  Light  that  in  her  shines 
(A  rare  Celestial  Gift)  refines ; 
And  by  degrees  at  last  doth  bring 
To  her  first  splendours  sacred  Spring: 
From  this  divine  Look,  one  Sun  passes 
Through  three  refulgent  Burning-glasses, 
Kindling  all  Beauty,  which  the  Spirit, 
The  Body,  and  the  Minde  inherit. 
These  rich  spoyles,  by  th'  eye  first  caught, 
Are  to  the  Soul's  next  Handmaid  brought, 
Who  there  resides :  She  to  the  Breast 
Sends  them;  reform'd',  but  not  exprest: 
The  Heart,  from  Matter  Beauty  takes, 
Of  many  one  Conception  makes; 
And  what  were  meant  by  Nature's  Laws, 
Distindl,  She  in  one  Picfture  draws. 


57 


The  VIII 

Sonnet  I  he  Heart  by  Love  allur'd  to  see 

Within  her  self  her  Progenie; 
This,  like  the  Sun's  reflected  Rayes 
Upon  the  Water's  face,  survayes; 
Yet  some  divine,  though  clouded  Light 
Seems  here  to  twinckle,  and  invite 
The  pious  Soul,  a  Beauty  more 
Sublime  and  Perfedt  to  adore; 
Who  sees  no  longer  his  dim  shade 
Upon  the  Earth's  vast  Globe  display 'd, 
But  certain  Lustre,  of  the  True 
Sun's  truest  Image,  now  in  view. 
The  Soul  thus  entring  in  the  Minde, 
There  such  uncertainty  doth  finde, 
That  she  to  clearer  Light  applies 
Her  Armes,  and  near  the  first  Sun  flies: 
She  by  his  splendour  beautious  grows, 
By  loving  whom  all  Beauty  flows 
Upon  the  Minde,  Soul,  World,  and  All 
Included  in  this  spacious  Ball. 


IX  The 

Dut  hold!  Love  stops  the  forward  Course         Sonnet 
That  me  beyond  my  scope  would  force. 
Great  Power!  if  any  Soul  appears 
Who  not  alone  the  blossomes  wears, 
But  of  the  rich  Fruit  is  possest, 
Lend  him  thy  Light,  deny  the  rest. 


THE  THIRD  BOOK 


THE  THIRD  BOOK 

TO  treat  of  both  Loves  belongs  to  different 
sciences ;  Vulgar  Love  to  Natural  or  Moral 
Philosophy;  Divine,  to  Theology  or  Meta- 
physicks.  Solomon  discourseth  excellently  of  the 
first  in  "Ecclesiastes,"  as  a  Natural.  Philosopher, 
in  his  "Proverbs,"  as  a  Moral:  of  the  Second  in  his 
"Canticles,"  esteemed  the  most  divine  of  all  the 
Songs  in  Scripture. 


The  r^  STANZA  I 

Third  1  he  chief  order  established  by  divine  Wisdom  in 
Book  created  things  is,  that  every  inferiour  Nature  be 
immediately  governed  by  the  superiour;  whom 
whilst  it  obeys,  it  is  guarded  from  all  ill,  and  led 
without  any  obstruction  to  its  determinate  feli- 
city; but  if  through  too  much  affedtion  to  its  own 
liberty,  and  desire  to  prefer  the  licentious  life 
jbefore  the  profitable,  it  rebel  from  the  superiour 
Mature,  it  falls  into  a  double  inconvenience.  First, 
like  a  ship  given  over  by  the  Pilot,  it  lights  some- 
times on  one  Rock,  sometimes  on  another,  without 
hope  of  reaching  the  Port.  Secondly,  it  loseth  the 
command  it  had  over  the  Natures  subjected  to 
it,  as  it  hath  deprived  its  superiour  of  his.  Irrational 
Nature  is  ruled  by  another, unfit  for  its  Imperfec- 
tion to  rule  any!  God  by  his  ineffable  Excellence 
provides  for  every  thing,  himself  needs  not  the 
providence  of  any  other:  betwixt  the  two  ex- 
treams,  God  and  Bruits,  are  Angels  and  Rational 
Souls,  governing  others, and  governed  by  others.' 
The  first  Hierarchy  of  Angels,  immediately  illu- 
minated by  God, enlighten  the  next  under  them; 
the  last  (by  Platonists  termed  Daemons,  by  the 
Hebrews  D-)im  as  Guardians  of  Men)  are  set  over 
us  as  we  over  Irrationals.  So  Psalm  8.  Whilst  the 
Angels  continued  subject  to  the  Divine  Power, 
they  retained  their  Authority  over  other  Crea- 
tures; but  when  Lucifer  and  his  Companions, 
through  inordinate  love  of  their  own  Excellence, 
64 


aspir'd  to  be  equal  with  God,  and  to  be  con-  The 
served,  as  he,  by  their  own  strength,  they  fell  Third 
from  Glory  to  extream  Misery;  and  when  they  Book 
lost  the  Priviledge  they  had  over  others,  seeing  us 
freed  from  their  Empire,  enviously  every  hour  in- 
sidiate  our  good.  The  same  order  is  in  the  lesser 
World,  our  Soul:  the  inferiour  faculties  are  di- 
recfted  by  the  superiour,  whom  following  they 
erre  not.  The  imaginative  corrects  the  mistakes  of 
outward  sense:  Reason  is  illuminated  by  the  In- 
tellecft,  nor  do  we  at  any  time  miscarry,  but  when 
the  Imaginative  will  not  give  credit  to  Reason, 
or  Reason  confident  of  it  self,  resists  the  IntellecfL 
In  the  desiderati  ve  the  Appetite  is  governed  by  the 
Rational,  the  Rational  by  the  Intel ledlual,  which 
our  Poet  implyes,  saying, 

"  Love  whose  hand  guides  my  heart's  strict  reins." 

The  cognoscitive  powers  are  seated  in  the  Head, 
the  desiderative  in  the  Heart.  In  every  well  or^ 
der'd  Soul  the  Appetite  is  govern'd  by  Intellec- 
tual Love;  imply ed  by  the  Metaphore  of  Reines 
borrowed  from  Plato  in  his  "Phaedrus." 

"Love  to  advance  my  flight,  will  lend 
The  wings  by  which  he  did  descend 
Into  my  heart—" 

When  any  superiour  vertue  is  said  to  descend,  ] 
we  imply  not  that  it  leaves  its  own  height  to  l 
come  down  to  us,  but  draws  us  up  to  it  self:  its 


The     descending  to  us,  is  our  ascending  to  it:  other- 
Third  |wise  such  conjunction  would  be  the  imperfec- 
Book  tion  of  the  vertue,  not  the  perfection  of  him  who 
receives  it. 


66 


STANZA  II  The 

"Love,  flowing  from  the  sacred  Spring  Third 

Of  uncreated  Good  *  "  Book 

From  the  Fountain  of  divine  goodness  into  our 
souls  in  which  that  influx  is  terminated. 

"When  born,-" 

The  order,  participation,  conversion  of  Ideas;  see 
lib.  2,  secft.  18. 

"—how  Heaven  he  moves;  the  Soul 

Informs;  and  doth  the  World  controwl." 
Of  these  three  properties  Love  is  not  the^effi-^ 
cient:  God  produceth  the  Ideas  in  the  Angelick 
Minde;  the  Minde  illustrates  the  Soul  with  Ideal  \ 
Beauty;  Heaven  is  moved  by  its  proper  Soul: 
But  without  Love  these  principles  do  not  oper- 
ate: He  is  cause  of  the  Minde's  conversion  to  God, 
and  of  the  Soul's  to  the  Minde;  without  which  the 
Ideas  would  not  descend  into  the  one,  nor  the  spe- 
cifick  reasons  into  the  other:  the  Soul  not  illumi- 
nated by  these,  could  not  elicite  this  sensible  form 
out  of  matter  by  the  motion  of  Heaven. 


67 


The  STANZA  III 

Third  When  the  first  emanation  from  God  (the  plenty 
Book  Of  Ideas)  descended  into  the  Angelick  Minde,  she, 
desiring  their  perfection,  reverts  to  God,  obtain- 
ing of  him  what  she  covets ;  which  the  more  fully 
she  possesseth,  the  more  fervently  she  loves.  This 
desire  (Celestial  Love),  born  of  the  obscure 
Minde  and  Ideas,  is  explained  in  this  stanza. 

"  —  true  Heaven—" 

God,  who  includes  all  created  beings,  as  Heaven 
all  sensible  (lib.  2,  sect.  n).  Onely  Spiritual  things 
according  to  Platonists  are  true  and  real,  the  rest 
but  shadows  and  images  of  these. 

"—the  sacred  Sun  —  " 
The  light  of  Ideas  streaming  from  God. 

"— enliven'd  Leaves—" 

The  Metaphore  of  Leaves  relates  to  the  Orchard 
of  Jupiter,  where  these  Ideas  were  planted  (lib.  2, 
sect.  10):  "Enliven'd"  as  having  in  themselves 
the  principle  of  their  operation,  Intellection,  the 
noblest  life,  as  the  Psalmist,  "Give  me  under- 
standing and  I  shall  live."  So  the  Cabalists  to  the 
second  Sephirah,  which  is  Wisdom,  attribute  the 
name  of  Life. 

"  —  adorn,  bestowing  form  —  " 
To  adorn  denotes  no  more  than  accidentall  per- 
fection, but  Ideas  are  the  Substance  of  the  Minde, 
68 


and  therefore  he  adds  "bestowing form;"  which  The 
though  they  come  to  her  from  without,  she  re-  Third 
ceives  not  as  accidents,  but  as  her  first  intrin-  Book 
secal  acfl:  which  our  Author  implies,  terming  her 
desires  innate. 

"And  by  this  Love  exalted,  turns 

Into  the  Sun  for  whom  she  burns." 
Love  transforms  the  lover  into  the  thing  loved.  ^ 

"^Wealth  and  Want-" 
Porus  and  Penia  (lib.  2,  sedt.  10). 


69 


The  STANZA  IV 

Third    1  he  properties  of  Celestial  Love  are  in  this 
Book    stanza  discovered. 

"  —  in  new  fetters  caught—" 
The  Soul  being  opprest  by  the  Body,  her  desire 
of  Intel  ledtual  Beauty  sleeps;  but,  awakened  by 
Love,  is  by  the  sensible  Beauty  of  the  Body  led 
at  last  to  their  Fountain,  God. 

"—which  glow 

Dying,  yet  glowing  greater  grow." 
Motion  and  Operation  are  the  signes  of  life,  their 
privation  of  death;  in  him  who  applyes  himself 
to  the  intellectual  part,  the  rational  and  the  sen- 
'         sitive  fail;  by  the  Rational  he  is  Man;  by  the  In- 
;|     4  telledlual  communicates  with  Angels:  As  Man 
|  he  dyes,  reviv'd  an  Angel.  Thus  the  Heart  dyes 
'  in  the  flames  of  Intellectual  Love,  yet  consumes 
XV^    not,  but  by  this  death  "grows  greater,"  receives 
a  new  and  more  sublime  life.  See  in  Plato  the 


Fables  of  Alcestes  and  Orpheus. 

~ 


STANZA  V  The 

1  his  stanza  is  a  description  of  sensible  Beauty.  Third 

Book 
"The  elder  in  the  Sun's  glasse  reads 

Her  face,  through  the  confused  skreen 

Of  a  dark  shade  obscurely  seen." 
Sensible  light  is  the  adl  and  efficacy  of  corpo- 
real, spiritual  light  of  Intelligible  Beauty.  Ideas 
in  their  descent  into  the  inform  Angelick  Minde, 
were  as  colours  and  figures  in  the  Night.  As  he 
who  by  Moonlight  seeth  some  fair  objedl,  desires 
to  view  and  enjoy  it  more  fully  in  the  day;  so 
the  Minde,  weakly  beholding  in  her  self  the  Ideal 
Beauty  dim,  and  opacous  (which  our  Author  calls 
"the  skreen  of  a  dark  shade")  by  reason  of  the 
Night  of  her  imperfedlion,  turns  (like  the  Moon) 
to  the  eternal  Sun,  to  perfecft  her  Beauty  by  him; 
to  whom  addressing  her  self,  she  becomes  Intel- 
ligible light;  clearing  the  beauty  of  Celestial  Ve- 
nus, and  rendring  it  visible  to  the  eye  of  the  first 
Minde. 

In  sensible  Beauty  we  consider  first  the  objedl 
in  it  self;  the  same  at  Midnight  as  at  Noon :  sec- 
ondly the  light,  in  a  manner  the  Soul  thereof:  the 
Author  supposeth,  that  as  the  first  part  of  sensi- 
ble Beauty  (corporeal  forms)  proceeds  from  the 
first  part  of  Intellectual  Beauty  (Ideal  forms),  so 
sensible  light  flows  from  the  intelligible  descend- 
ing upon  Ideas. 


The  STANZAS  VI,  VII,  VIII 

Third  (^  orporeal  Beauty  imp  lyes,  first  the  material  dis- 
Book  position  of  the  Body,  consisting  of  quantity  in 
the  proportion  and  distance  of  parts,  of  quality 
in  figure  and  colour:  secondly,  a  certain  quality 
which  cannot  be  exprest  by  any  term  better  than 
Gracefulness,  shining  in  all  that  is  fair.  This  is 
properly  Venus,  Beauty,  which  kindles  the  fire 
of  Love  in  Mankinde:  they  who  affirm  it  results 
from  the  disposition  of  the  Body,  the  sight,  fig- 
ure, and  colour  of  features,  are  easily  confuted 
}  by  experience.  We  see  many  persons  exact,  and 
unaccusable  in  every  part,  destitute  of  this  grace, 
and  comelinesse;  others  lesse  perfect  in  those 
particular  conditions,  excellently  graceful  and 
comely;  Thus  Catullus, 

"  Many- think  Quintia  beautious ;  fair  and  tall, 
And  strait  she  is,  a  part  I  grant  her  all, 
But  altogether  beautious  I  deny; 
For  not  one  grace  doth  that  large  shape  supply." 

«.  He  grants  her  Perfection  of  Quality,  Figure,  and 
Quantity,  yet  not  allows  her  handsome,  as  want- 
ing this  Grace.  This  then  must  by  consequence  be 
ascribed  to  the  Soul;  which  when  perfect  and  lu- 
cid, transfuseth  even  into  the  Body  some  Beams 
of  its  Splendour.  When  Moses  came  from  the  di- 
vine Vision  in  the  Mount,  his  face  did  shine  so 
exceedingly,  that  the  People  could  not  behold  it, 
unlesse  vail'd.  Porphyrius  relates,  that  when  Plo- 
72 


tinus  his  Soul  was  elevated  by  divine  Contem-  The 
plation,  an  extraordinary  brightness  appear'd  in  Third 
his  looks;  Plotinus  himself  averres,  that  there  was  Book 
never  any  beautiful   Person  wicked,  that  this 
Gracefulnesse  in  the  Body  is  a  certain  signe  of  ( 
Perfection  in  the  Soul.  Proverbs  xvii.  24.  "Wis- 
dom shineth  in  the  countenance  of  the  Wise."1" 
From  Material  Beauty  we  ascend  tO't,he,.firfc,t 
Fountain  by  six  Degrees:  the  Soul  thfough  the 
sight  represents  to  her  self  the  Beauty  of  some 
particular  Person,  inclines  to  it,  is  pleased  with  it, 
and  while  she  rests  here,  is  in  the  first,  the  most 
imperfedl  material  degree.  2.  She  reforms  by  her 
imagination  the  Image  she  hath  received, making; 
it  more  perfect  as  more  spiritual ;  and  separating  \ 
it  from  Matter,  brings  it  a  little  nearer  Ideal  Beauty ,j[ 
3.  By  the  light  of  the  agent  Intellect  abstracting 
this  Form  from  all  singularity,  she  considers  the 
universal  Nature  of  Corporeal  Beauty  by  it  self: 
this  is  the  highest  degree  the  Soul  can  reach 
whilest  she  goes  no  further  than  Sense.  4.  Reflect"-] 
ing  upon  her  own  Operation,  the  knowledge! 
of  universal  Beauty,  and  considering  that  every \ 
thing  founded  in  Matter  is  particular,  she  con- 
cludes this  universality  proceeds  not  from  the 
outward  Object,  but  her  Intrinsecal  Power:  and 
reasons  thus:  If  in  the  dimme  Glasse  of  Mate- 
rial Phantasmes  this  Beauty  is  represented  by 
vertue  of  my  Light,  it  follows  that,  beholding  it 
in  the  clear  Mirrour  of  my  substance  devested 

73 


The  of  those  Clouds,  it  will  appear  more  perspicuous : 
Third  thus  turning  into  her  self,  she  findes  the  Image 
Book  '  Of  Ideal  Beauty  communicated  to  her  by  the 
Intellect,  the  Objecfl  of  Celestiall  Love.  5.  She 
ascends  from  this  Idea  in  her  self,  to  the  place 
where  Celestial  Venus  is,  in  her  proper  form: 
Who  in  fullness  of  her  Beauty  not  being  compre- 
hensible, by  any  particular  Intellect,  she,  as  much 
as  in. her  lies,  endeavours  to  be  united  to  the 
first  Minde,  the  chiefest  of  Creatures,  and  general 
Habitation  of  Ideal  Beauty.  Obtaining  this,  she 
terminates,  and  fixeth  her  journey;  this  is  the 
sixth  and  last  degree.  They  are  all  imply'd  in 
the  6th,  /th,  and  8th  Stanzas 

"  Form'd  by  th'  eternal  Look,  &c." 

Platonists  affirm  some  Souls  are  of  the  nature  of 
Saturn,  others  of  Jupiter  or  some  other  Planet; 
meaning,  one  Soul  hath  more  conformity  in  its 
Nature  with  the  Soul  of  the  Heaven  of  Saturn, 
than  with  that  of  Jupiter,  and  so  on  the  contrary; 
of  which  there  can  be  no  internal  Cause,  assigned ; 
the  external  is  God,  who  (as  Plato  in  his  "Ti- 
maeus")  "Soweth  and  scattereth  Souls,  some  in 
the  Moon,  others  in  other  Planets  and  Stars,  the 
Instruments  of  Time." 

Many  imagine  the  Rational  Soul  descending 
from  her  Star,  in  her  "  Vehiculum  Coeleste,"  of 
her  self  forms  the  Body,  to  which  by  that  Me- 
dium she  is   united.  Our  Author  upon   these 
74 


grounds  supposeth,  that  into  the  "Vehiculum"  The 
of  the  Soul,  by  her  endued  with  Power  to  form  Third 
the  Body,  is  infused  from  her  Star  a  particular  Book 
formative  vertue,  distinct  according  to  that  Star; 
thus  the  aspedt  of  one  is  Saturnine,  of  another 
Jovial,  &c.  In  their  looks  we  reade  the  nature  of 
their  Souls. 

But  because  inferiour  Matter  is  not  ever  obedi- 
ent to  the  Stamp,  the  vertue  of  the  Soul  is  not 
alwayes  equally  exprest  in  the  visible  Effigies; 
hence  it  happens  that  two  of  the  same  Nature 
are  unlike;  the  Matter  whereof  the  one  consists, 
being  lesse  disposed  to  receive  that  Figure  than 
the  other;  what  in  that  is  compleat  is  in  this  im- 
perfecl; ;  our  Author  infers,  that  the  figures  of  two 
Bodies  being  formed  by  vertue  of  the  same  Star, 
this  Conformity  begets  Love. 

"From  the  Sun's  most  sublime  abode." 
The  Tropick  of  Cancer :  by  which  Souls  according 
to  Platonists  descend,  ascending  by  Capricorn. 
Cancer  is  the  House  of  the  Moon,  who  predom- 
inates over  the  vital  Parts,  Capricorn  of  Saturn 
presiding  over  Contemplation. 

"The  Heart  in  which  AfFedtion  's  bred 

Is  thus  by  pleasing  Errour  fed/' 
Frequently,  if  not  alwayes,  the  Lover  believes 
that  which  he  loves  more  beautious  than  it  is; 
he  beholds  it  in  the  Image  his  Soul  hath  formed 

75 


The     of  it,  so  much  fairer  as  more  separate  from  Mat- 
Third  ter,  the  Principle  of  Deformity;  besides,  the  Soul 
Book  ^5  more  indulgent  in  her  Affection  to  this  Spe- 
cies, considering  it  is  her  own  Childe  produc'd  in 
her  Imagination. 

"  —  one  Sun  passes 

Through  three  refulgent  Burning-glasses." 
One  Light  flowing  from  God,  beautifies  the  An- 
gelick,  the  Rational  Nature,  and  the  Sensible 
World. 

"  —  the  Soul's  next  Handmaid  —  " 
The  Imaginative. 

"-to  the  Breast." 

The  Breast  and  Heart  here  taken  for  the  Soul  be- 
cause her  nearest  Lodging;  the  Fountain  of  Life 
and  Heat. 

"  — reform'd,  but  not  exprest." 
"Reform'd"  by  the  Imagination  from  the  de- 
formity of  Matter;  yet  not  reduc'd  to  perfect 
immateriality,  without  which  true  Beauty  is  not 
"  Exprest." 

Finis 


NOTES  TO  INTRODUCTION 


1  Cf.  N.  Mattioli,  Studio  critico  sopra  Egidio  Ro-  Notes  to 
mano  Colonna  (Rome,  1896) ,  pp.  19 j et seq. ;  and,  Intro- 

in  support  of  the  traditional  attribution  to  Egidio,  dudlion 
G.Boffito,  Saggio  di  Bibliografia  Egidiana  (Flor- 
ence, 1911),  pp.  ^7,  58. 

2  Liber  I  Metaphysicorum,  V,  xv. 

3  Inf.  iv,  131. 

4  Triumphus  Famae,  iii,  4-7. 

5  Marsilii  Ficini  Opera  (Basle,  1,576),  I,  p.  649. 

6  Prefatory  letters  to  Bernardo  del  Nero  &  An- 
tonio Manetti:  Marsilio  Ficino  sopra  1'Amore 
overo  Convito  di  Platone. 

7  Opera,  ed.  cit.,  I,  p.  628. 

8  Cf.Caterina  Re,  GirolamoBenivieni  Florentine, 
pp.  7^-80. 

9  De  veritate  Fidei  in  Dominicae  Crucis  trium- 
phum,  IV,  iii. 

10  Cf.  }.  M.  Rigg,  Pico  della  Mirandola,  pp.  xxiii, 
xxiv. 

11  Commento,  i,  secft.  4. 

12  But  cf.  Mr.  Rigg's  interpretation  of  this  passage, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  xxv,  xxvi. 

13  Cf.  especially  his  Fasciculus  Amoris. 

14  Sopra  1'Amore,  p.  108. 

15  Commento,  ii,  secft.  20. 

16  Cf.  Caterina  Re,  op.  cit.,  pp.  208-211. 

17  Cf.  E.  Solmi,  Benedetto  Spinoza  e  Leone  Ebreo. 
Studio  su  una  fonte  italiana  dimenticata  dello 
Spinozismo.  Modena,  1903. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


Marsilii  Ficini  Florentini  Opera.  Basle,  1,776. 

Marsilio  Ficino  sopra  1'Amore  overo  Convito  di 
Platone.  Florence,  1^44. 

Joannis  Pici,  Mirandulae  Concordiaeque  comitis, 
Opera  quae  extant  omnia.  Basle,  1601. 

Opere  di  Girolamo  Benivieni  Florentine,  con  una 
Canzonadello  Amore  celeste  et  divino,col  Com- 
mento  dello  III.  S.  Conte  Giovanni  Pico  Miran- 
dolano.  Florence,  1^19;  Venice,  1522;  etc. 

Commento  di  Hieronymo  Benivieni  sopra  a  piii 
sue  canzone  et  sonetti  dello  Amore  e  della  Bel- 
lezza  divina.  Florence,  ijoo. 

J.  M.  Rigg:  Introducftion  to  Giovanni  Pico  della 
Mirandola ;  his  Life  by  his  nephew  Giovanni  Fran- 
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Thomas  More.  London,  1890. 

Vincenzo  di  Giovanni:  Giovanni  Pico  della  Mi- 
randola nella  storia  del  rinascimento  e  della  filo- 
sofia  in  Italia.  Palermo,  1894. 

F.  Calori  Cesis:  Giovanni  Pico  della  Mirandola 
detto  La  Fenice  degli  Ingegni,  Mirandola,  1897. 

Vittorio  Rossi:  II  Quattrocento.  Milan,  1900. 

83 


Biblio-  Adolfo  Gaspary:  Storia  della  Letteratura  Itali- 
graphi-  ana,  volume  secondo  parte  prima,  trad,  da  Vitto- 
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Arnaldo  della  Torre:  Storia  dell' Accademia  Pla- 
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Caterina  Re:  Girolamo  Benivieni  Fiorentino. 
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Dialoghi  di  Amore  composti  per  Leone  medico. 
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A  Platonick  Discourse  upon  Love,  written  in 
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The  History  of  Philosophy,  by  Thomas  Stan- 
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Walter  Raleigh:  Introduction  to  The  Book  of  the 
Courtier  from  the  Italian  of  Count  Baldassare  Cas- 
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anno  r?6i.  London,  1900. 


THIS  VOLUME 

WITH  TITLE-PAGE  BY  T.  M.  CLELAND 

WAS  PRINTED  BY  D.  B.  UPDIKE 

AT  THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS 

BOSTON,  U.S.A. 

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